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CHAPTERS

FROM

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS

CHAPTERS FROM

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS

BY Ji H. MUIRHEAD, M.A.

PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND MORAL
PHILOSOPHY, MASON UNIVER
SITY COLLEGE
BIRMINGHAM

vTrpa^ia yap &vsv 8iai/oias Kal tfOovs OVK

Arist. Eth. VI. ii. 4,

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET

o

LONDON :

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

TO

M. T. M.

PREFACE.

THESE Chapters have grown out of an attempt to
use the Nicomachean Ethics as an introduction to
some of the more fundamental conceptions of Moral
Philosophy. In spite of the prominent place which
the Ethics has held for the last generation in English
University education, the supply of literature dealing
with its leading ideas which is accessible to the
general student is singularly deficient. There is,
of course, Sir Alexander Grant's great commentary.
Grant, however, wrote at a time when both psychology
and general philosophy in this country were in a
comparatively backward state, and would himself have
been the first to admit that the advance which is
always being made in these departments of knowledge
imposes upon each generation the duty of reinter
preting the ideas of the great writers of the past in
terms that correspond to it. His work, moreover, is
addressed to professed students, and for the most
part presupposes that the reader has the Greek text
before him. The need of reinterpretation has, as is

viii PREFACE.

well known, been supplied with signal success by
Professor Stewart in his two volumes of Notes on the
Nicomachean Ethics, a book which may well seem to
the student to have exhausted the field and made any
subsequent commentary in this generation superfluous.
Professor Stewart, however, even more than Sir
Alexander Grant, writes for scholars, and, as far as
the English reader is concerned, leaves the new light
he has to throw on Aristotelian study hidden under
a bushel of textual criticism and interpretation.

It was this feature of his book that suggested to me
that there might be room for an attempt such as that
which follows to bring some of the leading conceptions
of the Ethics into connexion with modern ideas for
the sake of the general reader. While this is the
main purpose of these Chapters, I venture to hope that
they may not be found wholly useless to University
students as an introduction both to the Ethics and to
Moral Philosophy in general.

The form in which they are presented retains marks
of their origin in a course of lectures to teachers
of which they were the foundation. Their original
design further accounts for the conspicuous omission
of all reference to Aristotle's famous treatment of
Justice in the fifth book, which falls rather to the side
of politics than education.

The translation of the Selected Passages is founded
on Bywater's classical text. In offering it along with

PREFACE. IX

the preliminary chapters, I have aimed at freeing the
original from some of the repetitions and obscurities
which, owing to the circumstances under which the
Ethics was first published, are apt to repel English
readers.

Besides my Wife, who read the whole in manu
script and made many suggestions, I have to thank
my colleague, Professor E. A. Sonnenschein, for a
careful revision of the greater part in proof.

BIRMINGHAM, January, 1900.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

INTRODUCTION ... ... ... ... ... i

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS.

§ i. The Supreme End of Action as the Subject of

Ethics ... ... ... ... 12

§ 2. General Character of the Science ... ... 15

§ 3. The Practical Value of Ethics ... 19

§ 4. Special Value of Greek Theory ... ... 23

II. OPINIONS AS TO THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS.

§ I. Starting-point and Method of Discussion ... 26
§ 2. Digression on the True Foundation of Ethical

Theory ... ... 27

§ 3. Character and Opinion ... ... 32

§4. Opinions as to the Nature of the Good ... 34

§ 5. Attributes of Happiness ... ... 38

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS.

§ I. Aristotle's Method. Is it Inductive or De
ductive? ... ... ... ... 41

§ 2. The Parts of the Definition. Happiness as

Performance of Function ... ... 43

§ 3. Happiness and Prosperity ... ... 45

§ 4. Time as an Element in Happiness ... 49

§ 5. The Happiness of Children ... ... 51

§6. The Stability of Happiness ... ... 53

Xll

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

TX.

THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS.

§ i. Aristotle's Doctrine of the

Soul and Body
> § 2. The " Parts " of the Soul ...

§3. Moral and Intellectual Virtue ...
THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE.

§ I. The Roots of Virtue ...

§ 2. Training in Virtue

§3. The Test of Virtue ...

§4. Character and Action

§ 5. Art and Morality

THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE.

§ i. The Mean

§2. The Mean as determined by Reason

§3. "The Prudent Man"

§ 4. The Mean is itself an Extreme
•-*§ 5- Can there be a "Habit of choosing"?
COURAGE.

§ i. The Platonic and Aristotelian Conceptions of
Courage

§ 2. Marks of True Courage

§ 3. The Greek and Modern Ideals of Courage
TEMPERANCE.

§ i. Features in Aristotle's Conception of Temperance

§ 2. Limitations of Ancient Conceptions of Temper
ance

§ 3. Greek Attitude to Pleasures of the Body ...

§ 4. Deepening in Modern Conceptions of the
Scope of Temperance

IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL.

§ I. Continence and Temperance

§ 2. The Socratic Doctrine of Continence ...

§ 3. Plato's Doctrine ...

§ 4. Aristotle's Contribution

57
63
67

70
73
75
78
Si

87
89
92

94
97

103

105
109

116
117

121

I23

126
127
I29
I32

CONTENTS. Xlll

CHAP. PAGE

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES : PRUDENCE,

§ i. The Intellectual Virtues ... ... ... I36

§ 2. The Distinction between Prudence and Wisdom 138

§3. The Intellectual Elements in Moral Virtue ... 140

§ 4. Prudence and Moral Virtue ... 146

§ 5. Prudence and Wisdom ... ••• I51

XI. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY.

, § i. Definition of Philosophy ... ••• J53

§ 2. Apparent Exaggeration in Aristotle's Doctrine 156

§ 3. Explanations ••• J58

§4. The Sanity of Aristotle's, Conception ... 161

§ 5. Theoria as the True Understanding of Life ... 163

XII. "FRIENDSHIP.

§ i. The Place of Friendship in Aristotle's Scheme

of the Virtues ... ... l69

§2. The Natural Roots of Friendship ... ... 171

§ 3. Friendship as the Basis of Political Union 173

§ 4. Friendship as a Means of Individual Perfection 175

§ 5. The Kinds of Friendship 178
§ 6. Egoism and Altruism ... .--183

§ 7. Friendship in Modern Education 185

XIII. PLEASURE.

§ i. The Two Discussions of Pleasure in the Ethics 189
§ 2. Theories as to the Relation of Pleasure to the

Good

§ 3. The Conditions of Pleasure ... 194

§ 4. Modern Criticism of Aristotle's Formula 197

§ 5. The Effect of Pleasure ... ... 201

§ 6. Applications of the above Theory 204

SELECTED PASSAGES FROM THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS 209

NOTES ... ... ••• ••' 3°9

INDEX ... ••• ••• — 3*7

\

CHAPTERS

FROM

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS.

INTRODUCTION.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY is sometimes thought of as an
abstract study which treats of human life out of
relation to definite circumstances of time or place.
This is to ignore the fact that philosophy, like science,
art, and religion, stands in organic relation to the
age and nation whose philosophy it is. Springing
from the need to express in an orderly system man's
deepest thoughts about life and mind, it would be
strange if it did not reflect the essential features of
the age of which the thinker is a part. This was in
a special degree true of the great philosophies in
Greece. It is true, indeed, that the speculations of
the pre-Socratic philosophers were little coloured by
the particular circumstances of the time. This was
due partly to the physical character of the speculations
themselves and partly to the cosmopolitan character
of the tfrinkers. But it was the glory of Socrates,
in directing attention to human life as the proper

B

CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE S ETHICS.

subject of investigation, to have brought philosophy
down from heaven, and, in doing so, to have given
it a home in Greece, and more particularly in Athens.
Henceforth it is only possible to understand the
leading features of Greek philosophy, whether in Plato,
in Aristotle, or in the Stoics and Epicureans, in the light
of the circumstances of the time that produced them.

Though not himself born in Athens, nor in Greece
proper at all, Aristotle * spent the best part of his life
after the age of seventeen in that city, and in all his
speculations on the nature of social happiness he has
the life of the ordinary Athenian citizen in view.
For the outlines of that life the English reader of
the Ethics must be referred to some good History
of Greece, such as Mr. Evelyn Abbott's. We can
here only very briefly summarize some of its lead
ing features.

1. It was lived in a city of about one-half the
population of Birmingham. f The city was surrounded

* The best accredited dates of his birth and death are 384 B.C. and
322 B.C. He resided at Athens from seventeen to thirty-seven, and
from forty-nine to sixty-one, about thirty-two years in all.

t The following estimate, made by Professor Sonnenschein, on the
basis of recent researches as to the population of Athens in the 5th
century B.C., may be taken as approximately correct.

1. Males who were full citizens, probably 30,000

2. Women and children belonging to free population 70,000

3. Resident aliens at least 10,000

4. Slaves uncertain, but at the very least 100,000

Total 210,000

As the above estimate for women and children is distinctly a low one,
and no estimate has been made of freedmen, the number of whom is
quite uncertain, we are, perhaps, justified in placing the total home
population at something like 250,000, the figure suggested in the text.

INTRODUCTION. 3

by a small agricultural area about the size of Warwick
shire, which furnished such portion of its food supply as
was not purchased from abroad. Beyond the borders
of Attica, both north and south, were other cities of
a similar kind — Thebes, Corinth, Argos, Sparta. All
these owned a common nationality as the city-homes
of Hellenes. Otherwise they formed independent
communities, each with its own form of government,
its own separate interests, and its own foreign policy.
While the bounds of these city-states were thus
narrower than anything with which we are acquainted,
within these bounds the life of the citizens was much
simpler and more homogeneous than in any modern
community even of the same size. In the afore
mentioned population there were probably not more
than thirty thousand who possessed the rights and
owed to one another the obligations of free and equal
citizens. Below these and the class of free-born
women and children belonging to them, stood
the larger portion of the inhabitants, consisting of
traders, artisans, and agricultural labourers, who,
for the most part, were either slaves or aliens.
Within the narrow class of fully privileged citizens,
moreover, there were few, if any, of the divisions
which separate one portion of a modern community
from another, and tend to obscure the common duty
which the members owe to the state or municipality.
There were as yet no deep religious differences, no
Catholics and Protestants, no Church and Dissent,
no strongly marked division between labour and
capital, rich and poor, town and country. It is

4 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS.

true that most cities were divided into two great
political parties — the oligarchical and the democratic
— one or other of which was always ready to call in
foreign aid. But, as has been well observed, the very
intensity of this political rivalry bore witness to the
vividness with which the members of all parties
realized their interest in the prize of victory.

2. It was a public life, or, at any rate, a life in
public. It follows from what has just been said that
the chief influences which moulded the character of
the citizens were different from those which operate
on the members of a modern community. Professor
Marshall has suggested that the factor which in
modern life is * of most importance in the formation
of character is the business by which a man earns
his livelihood. But in the ancient world of the Greek
republics the typical citizen had no business in the
modern sense of the word. He was not engaged
to any extent in earning his livelihood by trade
or profession. It is true that he spent part of his
time in the management of his own private affairs.
But this consisted to a large extent in the adminis
tration of property which he had for the most part
inherited, and was always subordinated to his public
and especially to his military duties. These latter
came nearer than anything else to what we might
call his "profession." Every citizen was also a soldier.
At no period — we might say on no day — of his life
was he free from the liability to be called upon to
take the field in defence of his country and hearth,

* With the exception of his religion.

INTRODUCTION. 5

or in support of a foreign ally. We naturally think
of the military side of Greek life as developed chiefly
in the Doric states, and notably in Sparta, where
mothers bade their sons return "with their shields or
upon them." But it was equally the first duty of the
citizens elsewhere to bear arms when occasion required
it. At Athens all alike on coming of age had to take
a solemn oath that they would neither disgrace their
shield nor desert a fellow-soldier ; * and we know that
Socrates, who in this as in other things may be taken
as representative, served on at least three separate
occasions in the Athenian army.

An illustration of the way in which the Athenian
gentleman of the 4th century B.C. combined private
business with military training, has come down to us
in the vivid picture which Xenophon draws in his
Oeconomicus.-\ Socrates there asks Ischomachus how
he manages it, to which he replies, "I have been
in the habit, Socrates, of rising at an hour when
if I should wish to see anybody I am likely to find
him at home. If I have any business to do in town,
I make this serve as a walk. But if I do not require
to go into town, my servant leads my horse into the
country, and I take my walk in the same direction
and with more profit than if I paced up and down
the arcade. When I get out into the country,, if I
find any of my workmen planting trees, or digging,

* The form of oath is preserved in slightly different forms in
Stobseus, Flor. xliii. 48, and Pollux, viii. 105. An additional clause is
mentioned by Plutarch, Alcib. 15, and Cicero, de Repub. iii. 9.

t xi. § 13.

CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS.

or sowing, or harvesting, I examine the methods they
are employing, and make any suggestion I may have
for improving them. I then mount my horse and
take a ride, as nearly as possible resembling the kind
we have to be prepared for in actual war, avoiding
neither slant nor steep, ditch nor canal, only taking
care as far as possible not to lame my horse over it.
After this my servant lets him have a roll, and then
leads him off, taking with him anything we may
require in town, while I make my way home — some
times at a walk, sometimes running. After that I
have a rub down. Then I lunch, taking just enough
to get through the day without feeling empty and
at the same time without overloading my stomach."

uThe day," so far as it was devoted to business,
was occupied with his public duties, strictly so called.
They consisted of attendance on the various meetings
and committees by which the government was carried
on. He might be a member of the Senate, in which
case he might have to consider the kind of question
which we associate with a cabinet council — the prepa
ration of bills for presentation to the popular assembly
or the superintendence of administration. He would
certainly be a member of the legislative Assembly,
and his vote might be called for in an election of
public officers or an important debate on foreign
policy. As a member of the executive he might have
to preside at such a meeting. Or, again, as a member
of one of the permanent bands of jurymen he might
have to spend his day in judicial administration.

3. It was rounded by leisure. The above account

INTRODUCTION.

of the occupations which filled up the time of the
ordinary Greek citizen in the century preceding that
in which Plato and Aristotle wrote, would be incom
plete if no mention were made of another feature of
Greek life— the leisure which it left and was designed
to leave. The Greek citizen did not live for arms or
for politics any more than for bread alone. He was
a creature of large discourse, and had an outlook on
a larger world than that of his soldiership, his private
business, or even his public duties. This world was
represented by the buildings and statues that were
daily before his eyes ; by the great religious festivals
that divided the year, culminating in dramatic repre
sentations, where questions of fate, free-will, and the
government of the world were worked out before
his eyes ; by the gymnasia or social clubs where
friends met for free discussion of current topics ; and
last, but not least, by the schools of the philosophers,
which, as politics declined, became more and more the
meeting-ground of the abler and more ardent spirits.

From all this it is easy to understand that his
citizenship or his fellowship with citizens was the
prominent fact in the life of the Greek of the 5th and
4th centuries before Christ. It was impossible to miss
this feature or to describe the full and satisfying life
without a reference to it. To be a good citizen and
to be recognized and appreciated by fellow-citizens
was to be a happy man, and to be a good citizen in
the full sense meant not only to be a brave soldier,
an economical and liberal manager of property, but

CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS.

a just judge and a wise administrator. And if these
things did not satisfy, behind them all, and made
possible by them, there was the refined enjoyment
of all that makes life most worth living— art, litera
ture, science, and philosophy.

Understanding the facts that Aristotle had before
him in this light, the reader will have less difficulty
in finding his bearings among the distinctions and
definitions in which the philosopher attempts to
express what is of permanent human interest in them.
Thus, when we are told that "man is a political
being," ij we shall understand that Aristotle means
more than that his physical needs make union with
others a necessity to him. It is of course true that
human societies in their origin are unions of individuals
or families for the purpose of furnishing food and pro
tection. But they are more. Political organization is
necessary to enable man to develop the best that is
in him. " Society," says Aristotle, " originates in the
need of a livelihood, but it exists for the sake of
life."

Similarly, when Aristotle goes on to define the
conditions of the good or happy life as the efficient
discharge of functions, we shall be prepared to under
stand that by functions he means the actions that are
distinctive of the man and the citizen. It is true that
the functions of the man have their roots deep down

* The phrase in Ethics, I. c. vii. § 6, is " Man is by nature a citizen ; "
IX. c. ix. § 3, " Man is a political being and made for society." In

Politics, III. c. vi. § 3, the full phrase occurs, « Man is a creature

naturally designed for life in a city-state,"

INTRODUCTION. 9

in organic functions common to him with the animals,
and that the individual comes in point of time before
the citizen. But the one class of functions are only
in Aristotle's language the potentiality of the other ;
the functions of man's animal and individual nature
find their end and justification in the relation they
bear to the functions he is called upon to exercise to
the best of his power as a member of a civilized
community.

Again, when, going on to define wherein excellence
in this discharge of function consists, Aristotle pro
pounds the now familiar doctrine that excellence or
virtue is a " mean," we shall be the less likely to mis
apprehend his teaching, as is not uncommonly done.
We shall know that the "mean" must be understood
in relation to the permanent ends of the citizen, not
to an arbitrarily chosen standard of what is prudent
or consistent with good taste in the individual. We
shall thus be prepared to find that Aristotle regards
his own definition as inadequate to express the full
meaning of virtue. When we are seeking for a formal
definition we may describe the good act as a mean,
yet when we look to its essential nature it is an
extreme — the best that can be done.

Again, when, passing beyond the attempt to fix in
what sense the Cardinal virtues or capacities of the
Greek citizen — his courage, his self-command, his
liberality — are a mean, we come to the relation of the
virtuous life to the highest form of good living open
to man, viz. the life of reason or complete self-conscious
ness, we shall be prepared to hear of other conditions

10 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE S ETHICS.

that must be added to virtue in its narrower sense.
We have seen that the virtues of the private citizen,
or even of the citizen-soldier, fall short of a complete
equipment for the citizen's functions. To these have
to be added the capacities of the legislator and
administrator, which, when we seek to analyze them,
are all seen to centre in the one supreme capacity
of insight into the true purpose of social life and the
means by which it may be forwarded through the
right conduct of the citizens.

Finally, we shall be prepared to understand an exten
sion of the ideal of happiness which might at first
first appear inconsistent with the civic ideal already
described. In his enthusiasm for the life which is " self-
sufficient, leisurely, inexhaustible," something, in truth,
more than human, Aristotle may appear to have over
shot the mark and drawn too deep a line between
week-day and sabbath. Whatever explanation we may
be able to give of this dualism in so great a thinker,
what has been said above of the function of art and
religion among the Greeks will enable us partly to
understand what is meant by such a claim. As the
Parthenon crowned the Acropolis, the Great Dionysia
the Athenian year, so the life of leisure was the crown
of the secular employments of the citizen's life. As,
however, his art and his poetry were never thought
of by the Greek as something apart from his common
life, but as palpable witnesses to its inward and
spiritual meaning, so leisure and contemplation were
not something superadded to the other ends of life,
but a means of enabling the citizen to realize more

INTRODUCTION. 1 1

fully what these ends imply. Through them he
thought he knew

"The hills where his life rose
And the sea where it goes."

Through them he thought he saw that in renouncing
merely individual ends he was identifying himself with
one that was greater and more permanent, and yet,
in a deeper sense, his own.

12 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

CHAPTER I.

THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS.

" All indistinctly apprehend a bliss
On which the soul may rest, the hearts of all
Yearn after it, and to that wished bourn
All therefore strive."

DANTE.

§ I. The Supreme End of Action as the Subject of
Ethics.

[Ethics, Bk. I. c. i.; c. ii. § I.]

IN the opening sentence of the Ethics Aristotle states
the fundamental assumption of his moral philosophy,
viz. that all human conduct — "all action directed by
choice " — implies some final end or purpose. By this,
as the sequel shows, he means not only that all conduct
involves a consciously conceived end or purpose —
such a proposition would be merely verbal, seeing
that " choice " necessarily implies conscious purpose-
but that underneath all our ordinary purposes there
lies, whether clearly conceived or not, some supreme
purpose which is both the source and explanation of
them. That such a supreme end actually is pre
supposed in ordinary life is not immediately obvious.
True, we do not ordinarily conceive of our lives as

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. 13

broken up into isolated activities standing in no
relation to one another. This would be the negation
of all conduct — all leading or guiding of action. Yet
it is equally remote from ordinary ways of thinking
to conceive of life as organized for the attainment of
some supreme all-important end. Prima facie, life is
the endeavour to satisfy a multitude of desires, which
are endless in their recurrence and insatiable in their
extent, and it is not a little curious that modern
philosophy in England, so far from accepting it as
self-evident that life is a rounded whole in the sense
here assumed, starts from the opposite assumption by
emphatically denying it. At the beginning of the
chapters in his great treatise which are devoted to
the principles of morals, or as he calls them " manners,"
Hobbes,the acknowledged father of English philosophy,
lays it down that " the felicity of this life consisteth
not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is
no such finis ulttmus, utmost aim, nor summum bonum,
greatest good, as is spoken of in the books of the old
moral philosophers. . . . Felicity is a continual progress
of the desire, from one object to another, the attain
ing of the former being still but the way to the
latter. The cause whereof is that the object of man's
desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant
of time, but to assure for ever the way of his future
desire. ... So that in the first place I put for a general
inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless
desire of power after power that ceaseth only in
death. And the cause of this is not always that a
man hopes for a more intensive delight than he has

14 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

already attained to, or that he cannot be content with
a moderate power ; but because he cannot assure the
power and means to live well, which he hath present,
without the acquisition of more." * Nor does it
appear that the view here taken is at all met by the
statement put forward by Aristotle in support of his
assumption (viz. that otherwise we should have to go
into infinity and leave our desires without point or
purpose), seeing that Hobbes would have been ready
to accept this conclusion, and actually makes it, in
the passage quoted, the ground of his denial of a
supreme end of action.

Further reflection, however, especially if directed,
as Aristotle suggests in chap, i., to the organized
structure of society, will convince us that, however
we may define the nature of the chief end of
human desire (and this is not here the question),
some such supreme end is presupposed in the very
form of social life. Hobbes himself, when his doctrine
is examined more closely, is found to admit that the
activities of individuals and the organization of
society find their motive and explanation in one ruling
desire. His theory differs from Aristotle's not in
dispensing with the notion of a finis ulthmis or greatest
good, but in the account which it gives of the nature
of the end. According to Hobbes, it is the maximum
satisfaction of the individual desire for "gain and
glory;" according to Aristotle, it is the fullest develop
ment of man's nature as a social being.

* Leviathan^ c. xi.

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. 15

§ 2. General Character of the Science.

[I. cc. ii., iii.]

The remainder of chap. ii. and the first part of
chap. iii. give us two general features of the science.

I. It is the science of man as a citizen. It is
significant that Aristotle nowhere describes it as
" ethics." It is true that to him as to us it is the
science of character (?}0oe), but to describe it in this
way would have been doubly misleading from
Aristotle's point of view. In the first place, it would
have failed to bring out the central fact that not only
in its origin, but in its contents, good character is
essentially social. And, secondly, it would have
left no room for the distinction, so vital in Aristotle's
view, between the virtue or excellence which consists
in good character, and that higher kind of excellence
which consists in intelligence and insight. We are
here mainly concerned with the former point. Man,
we have seen, is " a political being." It is impossible
to consider his good or happiness apart from that of
the community in which he lives.

Discussing the question whether the virtue of the
good man and the good citizen is the same, in a
passage which ought to be read as a comment upon
this (Politics, iii. c. 4), Aristotle replies that it is
so when the state-organization is really constitu
tional or "political," i.e. when it permits the individual
to develop as nature intended him into the free
citizen of a self-governing community.

It might indeed appear as though the words of

16 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

c. ii. § 8,* were incompatible with this interpretation.
But in this section, as Professor Stewart has pointed
out, Aristotle must not be supposed to be distinguish
ing between the good of the community at large —
"the greatest happiness of the greatest number"—
and the private good of the single member of it.
Rather, he is distinguishing between the life of the
man who is surrounded by all that is best in civilized
life — its opportunities for social service on the one
side, and self-culture on the other — and that of the
same man when accidentally separated, whether by
exile (like Aristides), or imprisonment (like Socrates),
from all that makes life attractive. In the former
case, all that is best in him is called forth. He lives
in the life of his country — his country lives in him.
He is what nature intended him to be. In the
latter, all that is best in him is suppressed. He lives
in a mutilated, semi-animate way, and is only the
shadow of his former self.

2. It is inexact. We may agree to accept the dis
tinction that Aristotle draws between exact and inexact
sciences. Some sciences, of which mathematics is a
type, admit of exact reasoning from principles easily
grasped and universally acknowledged. Others, like
psychology, rest on principles reached by a somewhat
precarious process of induction, in the application of
which great caution has to be observed. Most people

" And even though this [the good] is the same for individuals
and communities, yet the good of the community is grander and more
sufficing to lay hold of and to keep. For though we may often rest
satisfied with merely individual good, yet the good of a nation or a
state is nobler and more divine."

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. I/

would also agree in assigning ethics or politics, as
Aristotle does, to the latter class. But it is not so
clear what they would mean by doing so. It may,
therefore, be worth while dwelling a moment on the
reason why we should agree with Aristotle in this
classification. It clearly is not because it is not
possible to know what is exactly right in matters of
conduct as in mathematics. There are principles here,
as in Euclid, which require that conduct shall be of
a certain definite kind.

We shall see what really is meant if we consider
for a moment the conditions that enter into a problem
in exact science, e.g. mathematics, and compare them
with those that set a problem in conduct. The
difference is that the conditions in mathematics are
abstract ; in ethics they are concrete. It may seem
paradoxical to claim for moral philosophy that it is
a concrete science. We usually think of it as one
of the most abstract. But from the point of view of
its subject-matter this is clearly not the case. While
the subject-matter of mathematics is number and
figure, i,e. abstract properties or things, ethics has
to do with concrete things or events themselves —
the wholes, we might say, of which these properties
are parts. Even this does not fully express what we
mean in claiming for ethics that it is the science of
the concrete. There is a point of view from which
concrete things and events themselves may be
regarded as abstractions, being merely points of
interest in a context which gives them meaning. It
is this context — the whole of which things or events

C

1 8 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

are parts — that forms the subject-matter of the science
of ethics. All conduct takes place in a context ; it
must have regard to a situation. The man who
would act rightly must attend to the diverse elements
or conditions — things, persons, events — which the
situation contains. Success in conduct just consists
in taking all of these elements or conditions into
account. It follows from what has just been said
that while the problems of a science like mathe
matics may repeat themselves, exactly the same
problem presenting itself to different individuals
or to the same individual at different times, the
conditions of a moral problem are such that they
can never recur. Situations like one another of
course do occur ; if they did not, moral habits would
be impossible, and the burden of responsibility in
adapting our conduct to them would be intolerable.
Yet they are never identical. " Circumstances," we
say, " alter cases ; " to which we may add that cases
alter circumstances. Two individuals are never in
the same circumstances. We may go further and say
that the same individual is never really in the same
circumstances twice. Morality, as Professor Alexander
says, never repeats itself. From which it follows that
though ethics, like other sciences, has its principles
and general rules, e.g. the ten commandments, the
application of them is essentially a matter of in
dividual judgment, and no conduct can be moral
conduct which is simply an application of a rule of
thumb.

This difference explains the saying in chap* ill

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. 19

that young men are not, as a rule, good students of
moral philosophy. If it is true that the solution of a
moral problem depends on the power of adapting con
duct to context or environment — of "hitting off" the
situation — it clearly implies two things in the agent.
In the first place, it implies the power of taking in
a situation as a whole : the quality we call judgment,
insight, wisdom. In the second place, it implies
freedom from the bias of passion, by which judgment
is apt to be warped. But both of these qualifications
are apt to be absent in youth ; the first because insight
into a situation depends not so much on the training
of any special faculty (as does, for example, mathe
matical ability) as upon experience of like situations in
the past ; the second because " young men, moreover,
are apt to be swayed by passion." The characteristic
addition that after all " the defect is not a matter of
time, but consists in their living according to passion,
and following the objects which passion suggests,"
reminding us that youth alone is not sufficient to
disqualify or age to qualify for deriving benefit from
the study, brings us to the last of the questions
touched upon in these sections, viz. that of the practical
value of the science of ethics.

§ 3. The Practical Value of Ethics.

[I. c. ii. § 2, and c. iii. § 7.]

Two remarks bear upon this question, (i) In c. iii.
§ 7, Aristotle notices the conditions under which it
can be of any value at all. To those who live according

20 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

to passion, and follow the objects which passion
suggests, he tells us "knowledge is of little avail."
From which it follows that whatever the value of ethics,
we ought not to expect it to change a man's life.
So far from a man's habits of choice being the out
come of his ethical theory, his theory of life, as we
shall see hereafter, is commonly the reflection of his
habitual pursuits. Moral philosophy can only make
explicit the principle which unconsciously controls
his actions. It cannot give principle to them. The
man without principle is thus without the " data " of
ethics. He may get up the science as he might get
up a subject for an examination, but he will have no
fine understanding of it, and as a consequence it will
have no effect upon his life.* (2) Under other cir
cumstances, however, Aristotle claims for the study
in c. ii. § 2, an important function in relation to
practice. " Surely to know what this Good is, is a
matter of practical importance, for in that case we
shall be as archers shooting at a definite mark, and
shall be more likely to do what is right." Let us try
to see clearly what is meant by this claim.

Current phrases are apt here to be misleading.
We hear, for instance, of " applied " as distinguished
from theoretic ethics, as if ethics, like mathematics or
mechanics, laid down rules or formulae which merely
required to be applied to particular cases in which
all the factors might be determined beforehand. We
have already seen how fallacious any such analogy
must necessarily be. Moral conduct is of course ruled
* Cf. c. iv. § 6, p. 216 below.

I. THE SCIENCE. OF ETHICS. 21

or regulated conduct, but the principle of regulation
is adequacy to changing situations and not conformity
to any system of rules and regulations. But because
ethical knowledge is of no use for " application " in
this sense, it does not follow that it has no practical
bearing on life.

As theory it serves the same function with respect
to its object as any other science does, and this,
from the nature of the case, seeing that ethics is the
science of conduct ("three-fourths of life"), is a practical
one. This will be clear if we consider for a moment
what this function is.

Theory is sometimes thought of as concerned with
general laws, and therefore as the antithesis of fact
and reality. But this, of course, is a misunderstanding.
The function of theory is not to carry us away into a
region of abstraction and comparative unreality, but
to put us into closer touch with fact. It is the
process by which we deepen our hold upon the world
about us, and thus vivify the impressions we receive
from it. To know, for example, the theory of the life
of flowers is to know any particular flower more fully,
more vividly, more really. Applying this to ethics,
or the science of the right end of life, the result of
determining the nature of this end, so far as we
succeed in doing so, will be to strengthen our hold
upon life and deepen our sense of its reality. Whether
such theoretic understanding of the meaning of right
conduct is necessary in order that our conduct may
be really right ; whether there is any sense in which
in spite of the above admissions it may be said to be

22 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

sufficient of itself to secure right conduct, i.e. whether
there is any sense in which, as Socrates held, virtue
is knowledge ; whether again philosophy in the strict
sense is the only way in which such knowledge is
acquired — are questions that will meet us hereafter.
It is sufficient here to have pointed out that ethics,
by dwelling upon the relation of action to end and
of our different ends to one another, tends to vivify
our apprehension of the meaning of conduct, and in
doing so to alter its character.* It is thus that,
by bringing into clear consciousness ends previously
accepted without conscious understanding of their
value, it helps to make apparent the incompatibility of
some of those ends with others, and suggests the possi
bility of so organizing life as to avoid misdirection of
activity and keep it to channels in which it may really
contribute to the one end of supreme value.f

This relation between theory and practice is well
illustrated by the order of treatment in the Ethics and
Politics. As in Plato, so in Aristotle, the discussion
which begins with more abstract questions concerning
the Good as the supreme End of life naturally leads
to suggestions for the reorganization of life with a
view to making it more directly contributory to this
end — ethical analysis to schemes of education and
government.

* For a fuller statement see Philosophy in Relation to Life (Ethical
World Publishing Co.).

t See Green's Prolegomena to Ethics^ p. 268. The whole passage
should be consulted on the subject of this and the next paragraph.

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. 23

§ 4. Special Value of Greek Theory.
But the English student, with such brilliant illustra
tions before him as are afforded by the utilitarian
school of reformers, is not so likely to doubt the
practical value of ethical study as the value of
approaching it for modern purposes through the
speculations of an ancient philosopher ; and a word
seems required in conclusion to justify this method.

There are two special advantages in approaching
the study of ethics through the great Greek philoso
phers, one of which has been already touched upon.

i. We are here placed from the outset at the right
point of view with regard to the nature of man whose
ends we are investigating. It is the good of man as
a citizen, or member of a community, not of man as
an individual, which is the subject-matter in ethics.
The good of the individual ought never to be separated
from the good of the whole of which he is a part-
ethics from politics. Some of the great English ethical
writers have obscured this point, and more recent
methods of study, by connecting ethics with biology,
have not tended to correct this error. As the
biologist finds the source and type of all life in the
single cell, it is assumed that moral science begins
with individuals as independent units who by their
union form the "aggregate" we call society. In this
way a presumption is established at the outset in
favour of a separation of individual from social well-
being, and the separation once made, the problem of
their harmonious union becomes insoluble.* Aristotle

* See below, p, 184.

24 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

never wavers on this head. He lays it down, as we
have seen from the outset, that man is primarily a
member of a community. He is of course well aware
that in the order of time (as we might say from the
point of view of sociology), the individual, or at least
the family, comes before the state. But this does
not affect the question of the true nature and end
of man, with which ethics is concerned. From this
point of view Aristotle has no doubt that the state
comes first. " In the order of nature the state is
prior to the household and the individual, as the
whole is prior to the part." * It is true, of course, that
modern ethics does not confine itself to the con
sideration of man in his functions as citizen. In laying
emphasis on the value of human personality we have
passed beyond the limits of Greek nationalism. But
this does not mean that we have substituted the idea
of individuals to whose happiness social union merely
stands at best as means to an end, for that of citizens
the end and purpose of whose being is a highly-
organized form of social life. It merely means that
we have enlarged our conception of the range of man's
organic connections. It is as untrue now as it was in
the time of Aristotle to claim that a man's life is his own.
It belongs to him not as an individual but as a member
of a community. The difference is that the community
is no longer conceived of as bounded by a city wall or
a neighbouring range of mountains, but as co-extensive
with humanity. Once, however, the principle is grasped
with respect to the smaller unity of the Greek city-state

* Politics, I. c. ii. § 12. See Note A, where the passage is quoted at length.

I. THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. 25

—and it is Aristotle's merit to have stated this in the
most unmistakable terms — it is easy to extend it to
the altered circumstances of modern times.*

2. We are placed at the right point of view with
regard to the true nature of goodness as an end in
itself. Modern writers, by laying emphasis on the
consequences of action in abstraction from the attitude
of the will, or the state of the desires of which action
is the expression, have often tended to represent
virtue as a means. This confusion is perhaps most
clearly marked in writers of the so-called Hedonist
school, who represent an attendant circumstance of
action, viz. the pleasure produced by it, as the source
of its moral value. By his clear grasp of the truth
that no action is truly good but that which is done
for its own sake, or as he puts it, " because it is a fine
thing," Aristotle frees ethics from the difficulty and
confusion thus imported into it. Upon this head his
teaching is, in fact, as Green says, final. His account
of the nature of moral excellence itself was in a sense
merely formal, and, as we have already seen, necessarily
provisional. But that purity of heart in the sense of
a conscious direction of the will to its attainment
was the condition of all true virtue, and constituted
the essential unity between one form of virtue and
another — this he taught with a consistency and
directness that left nothing to be desired. f

* Speaking of Aristotle's statement that man is born to be a citizen
(see above, p. 8, n.), Sir Frederick Pollock says : " There is hardly a
saying in Greek literature so well worn as this ; nor is there any that
has worn better " (History of the Science of Politics, p. 18).

t See Note B.

26 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

CHAPTER II.

OPINIONS AS TO THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS.

"Other good

There is where man finds not his happiness ;
It is not true fruition, not that blest
Essence, of every good the branch and root."

DANTE.

§ i. Starting-point and Method of Discussion.
[I. iv. §§ 1-4.]

ARISTOTLE assumes that there will be no difference
of opinion as to the general description of the end
or good. All agree to call it Happiness. Among
ourselves we should not find probably the same
general agreement on this head, owing to the con
fusion of happiness in the wider sense with happiness
in the narrower, the permanent state with the
transient feeling, variously described as satisfaction,
gratification, pleasure. The Greeks had two words,
which were quite separate in their minds, the one
indicating a quality of life as a whole (tuSa^ovm),
the other the feeling accompanying a momentary
state (?5<W/j). It is itself a step in the right direction
to note at the outset that we may admit that all

II. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS. 2/

seek after happiness, without committing ourselves
to the view that the good is pleasure.

In the discussion of the true nature of happiness
thus defined, Aristotle has not far to seek for his
starting-point. The conception of the chief good seems,
as Grant points out,* to have been vaguely present
before people's minds, and besides philosophical defini
tions, such as the " absolute good " of Plato (alluded to
in c. i. § 3), Aristotle had before him several popular
opinions which had already fixed upon one or other
of the elements which required to be united in a
complete definition. In what follows we have an ex
cellent example of Aristotle's scientific method. Begin
ning with common opinions which, in contrast to Plato,
he treats with the respect due to instinctive presenti
ments of the truth (cc. iv., v., vii.),t he works inward to
the definition which he seeks (c. vii. § 9 foil). From
this he returns to current opinions (c. viii.), with the
view of confirming his own account by showing that it
differs from them only in stating fully and explicitly
the truth of which they are a partial and confused
expression.

§ 2. Digression on the True Foundation of
Ethical Theory.

[I. c. iv. §§ 5-7.]

But before proceeding to the examination of current
opinions we are brought back to the question of the
general character of our study, and the important but

* Ethics of Aristotle, vol. i. p. 102. t Cp. X. ii. 4 (p. 301).

28 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

somewhat obscure passage which follows deals with
the problem of the kind of knowledge or experience
on which an ethical theory must be built. Every
science starts from some previous knowledge of the
student. What we discover is a continuation of, or,
rather, is a development out of, what we know already.
But if we ask what we mean by " knowing," we see
that there are two senses in which we may be said
to know a thing. We may know it simply as an
object of sense-perception or " matter of fact." In this
sense a child, or a savage, or any of us in ordinary
moments may know a house. Or, secondly, we may
know it as an illustration of a law or principle. In this
sense an architect may know a house as illustrating
certain principles of mechanics or of art. In the first of
these cases we may say the house is " known to the
individual." The knowledge differs according to the
individual point of view. We might even say each
individual sees a different house. In the second case
we have knowledge " in the strict sense of the term ; "
knowledge, that is, of something which is the same
for all, and is independent of time and circumstances.
Now, there is no doubt a sense in which this latter kind
of knowledge is " nearer to us," and may be said to
come first. Laws and principles touch us on the side
most characteristic of us as men, viz. our thought.*
Moreover, they come first in that they represent the
controlling factors in the process whereby the thing
comes to be what it is. On the other hand, the

* " Principles," says one of the commentators, " are more intimately
known because they are of the inner essence of mind."

II. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS. 29

particular thing may be said to be nearer to us in the
sense that it is an object of sense-perception rather
than of thought. For the same reason it also may be
said to come first, seeing we know through sense before
we know through intelligence. While, then, knowledge
of the principle may be said to be first in importance
— whether looked at from the point of view of nature,
which produces, or mind, which understands things —
the knowledge of the " fact " is first in time.

All this being so, the answer to the question with
which we started becomes clear. In the study of
ethics and politics, as in other concrete sciences, we
must begin with the actual facts of social life — the
moral judgments of the citizens and the actual form
which civil life takes, as represented by its laws and
institutions. It is true that these judgments and
institutions have come to be what they are by the
more or less conscious effort of individuals to realize
a social good. In this sense the Good may be said
to be nearer to us and come first. The ideal towards
which society is developing is that which makes us
what we most truly are. On the other hand, in the
process of realizing in consciousness what the nature
of this ideal is, as in knowledge in general, we must
begin with the facts of ordinary sense experience. As
Professor Stewart puts it : " Happiness is the Final
Cause of Life. The various ' virtues ' are naturally
subsequent to it as being its effects, i.e. as being what
they are in virtue of it, just as the hand is a hand
in virtue of the body ; but they are more evident to
us than it is, i.e. we learn (under the influence of

30 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

moral training) to discriminate practically, or in our
habitual conduct between good and bad actions, before
we can form a notion of life as a great whole, and
understand why and how they are good and bad ;
accordingly, we must begin our study of moral science
with this merely empirical ' knowledge of the virtues,'

and rise from it to the knowledge of their cause

happiness." *

But here a difficulty suggests itself: " How," it may
be asked, " from the merely empirical knowledge of the
facts of the moral life, e.g. acts of courage, can we rise
to ajcnowledge of their cause or principle ? These facts
are, or appear to be, merely particular physical events
jiappening here and now, whereas the end or good
_js ex hypotJiesi a principle of conscious direction^ ideal
_an^therefore universal. What is the connexion be
tween fact and principle by which we may ascend
from the one to the other ? " The jjiswex is that the
facts we spoke of as forming the starting-point are not
msrelyjaarticular physical events. As the outcome of
" character," i.e. a general habit of the will, they are
something far more. Thus the acts of courage,
temperance, etc., which form the starting-point of
moral science, are not mere isolated events, but
represent a fixed character or habit of acting in a
particular way, which has been acquired either under
the unconscious pressure of social opinion or the in
fluence of teachers conscious of the end they wish to
promote. Through habit or character, therefore, the

* Notes on the Nicomachean Ethics, vol. i. p. 54. In this and in other
quotations I have substituted the English for Greek terms.

II. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS. 31

facts are already more than mere facts. They_are
facts that embody a principle, and may thus form
the starting-point of an inquiry which is to issue
in the knowledge of a principle.

This explains why at the outset (I. iii. 5 foil.) so
much emphasis was laid upon character as a condi
tion of the profitable study of ethics. Apart from
character moral judgments are sounding phrases-
mere physical facts — coming home to a man with as
little conviction as verses of poetry to one who is
drunk.* The man of good character, on the other
hand, is already well on the way to a _ tme__mojral
philosophy./ Aristotle seems, indeed, to go even
further, and _to say he does not require one. This,
of course, is true, in a sense, ofjydinary life ; but if
taken generally would contradict what has already
been said about the practical value of philosophy.
What is meant is that while a knowledge of the
reason or principle is not necessary for ordinary life
(men would not, as a rule, understand it — habit, and
the accompanying opinion that the things habitually
done are good, being in this case sufficient), for
the teacher and thejDoHtician such a knowledge is
gssential. They are concerned with the genesis
of the citizen, and you might as well expect an
architect to build good houses without a knowledge
of the principles of his profession, as a teacher or a
law-giver to produce good citizens without a know
ledge of the principles which underlie our actions and
judgments.

* Cp. Ethics, VII. c. iii. § 13.

32 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

§ 3. Character and Opinion.
[I. c. v. § i.]

The next section contains a further illustration of the
relation between character and opinion. The order of
thought may be put as follows. In chap. iv. § 3,
Aristotle has reminded us that a man's opinions are
frequently influenced by the circumstances in which
he finds himself — the state of his health, his purse,
or his mind, at the time. In chap. v. he goes further,
and traces the origin of definite theories of the chief
end of life to the habitual preferences of those who
hold them. The common order is not, he tells us, first
to seek for a true theory of conduct and then proceed
to order one's life in accordance with it. On the con
trary, a man's choice of life comes first, and reflects
itself in any theory he may have occasion afterwards
to formulate. Some, "influenced by the lives they
lead," * " like the slaves that they are," hold that
pleasure is the good. Others, again, " with a practical
turn," prefer to make honour the end. But after what
has been said in the intermediate sections, this is only
what we might expect to find. " Show me a man,"
Aristotle there seems to have said, "who is accus
tomed to do what is right, and I will show you one
who is on the road to a right conclusion as to
the meaning of what he does — the principle of life
in general." Here we have the complementary truth,
" Show me a man whose actions are habitually wrong,

* Not " to judge, as we reasonably may, from their lives," as in
Peters' translation.

IT. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS.

33

and 1 can show you one who is likely to hold a
distorted view of life."

In maintaining that right action is the only avenue
to the apprehension of the principle of reason in life,
Aristotle here forestalls one of the most important
doctrines of the Ethics. It follows directly from his
view that moral action is already the implicit recogni
tion of moral truth. It is thus trfe antithesis of a
theory with which we have recently been made familiar
in some popular works, viz. that moral beliefs are the
result of habits and traditions that have grown up
independently of the operation of human reason, and
therefore lie beyond the scope of all logical tests.*
According to this view conformity to social traditions
is a mode of adaptation to environment, but brings
a man no nearer to the logos or rational meaning of
life. Aristotle admits that habit and tradition are
moulding influences in belief, but holds that they
themselves represent the action of the social reason
seeking the means of that complete self-development
which is the end of man. Seeing, then, that the ideal
of human development is reflected, however imper
fectly, in every action which contributes to true social
well-being, in acting morally the individual is preparing
himself for the conscious recognition of that ideal.
We shall have an opportunity of returning to this,
which is indeed the central truth of the Ethics, at a
later stage.

* See, for example, Mr. A. J. Balfour's Foundations of Belief . The
same view is applied to sociology by Mr. Benjamin Kicld in his Social
Evolution.

D

34 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

§ 4. Opinions as to the Natiire of the Good.
[I. c. v. §§ 2 foil.]

The division of life into three main types seems
to have been a commonplace of semi-philosophical
thought. It is traceable to the celebrated metaphor
attributed to Pythagoras, who, according to his
biographer, compared the world to the Olympic
games, to which some came to buy and sell and make
gain ; others for the sake of glory and to exhibit
the prowess of their body ; others — by far the noblest
sort — to see the country and noble works of art,
and contemplate every excellence of word and deed.
Aristotle, in what follows, refines upon this classifi
cation by distinguishing between the money-making
and the pleasure-seeking life as varieties of the lowest
form, rejecting them on different grounds ; while, at the
other end of the scale, he draws a suggestive distinction
between the life of a good man according as his powers
are called into active exercise or remain dormant.

i. In dealing with the opinion that pleasure is the
end (§ 3), Aristotle is not thinking of the deeper form
which it had already assumed in the school of the
Cyrenaics, and which was still further deepened and
dignified by the Epicureans in the succeeding age.
He is thinking merely of the popular form of the'
opinion, which identified the end of life with sensual
enjoyment. This he dismisses contemptuously as a
mere reflection of the degraded habits of those who
profess it. The theory in its more refined and
philosophical form, he reserves for later criticism.*
* See chapter xiii. below.

IT. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS. 35

2. The opinion that honour is the good (§§ 4 and 5)
is treated more respectfully. One of the tests of the
true end of life is that it should be something inherent
in man, that it should in fact be nothing less than
man's true nature or self. But honour is essentially
something adventitious, belonging to a man not as a
property of the soul, but as an accidental gift of his
fellow-men. It is, therefore, too superficial, being, as
Professor Stewart says, " not the nature and life of the
person honoured, but a merely superficial and transi
tory reflection on him of the opinion of other people."
This does not mean that honour, or the respect of
others, has no important function to perform in
relation to the true end. As we shall see hereafter,
the highest happiness involves what is here called
" assurance of one's own worth," and one of the chief
factors' in the development of this higher form of
self-consciousness is the mutual respect and recog
nition of friends.*

3. The definition of honour as the sign of the
possession of high qualities of character suggests the
view that virtue itself is the end (§§ 6 and 7). Aris
totle's criticism of this view, paradoxical as it at first
seems, carries us a step deeper, and brings out two
closely allied elements in his conception of happiness.
(a) Whatever else happiness is, it is a form of con
sciousness. As we shall see hereafter, it is the most
vivid form of consciousness in which man can partake.
It can never, therefore, consist in the mere possession
of virtue, however complete. Just as a man may

* See chapter xii.

36 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

possess all knowledge, and yet if he does not use it
cannot be called truly wise, so the man whose virtue
remains cloistered in his soul cannot be truly happy.
(b} Since happiness consists in the active discharge
of the soul's functions, mere potentiality, apart from
actual realization, is not enough. Happiness, there
fore, implies favourable circumstances. The opposite
doctrine, viz. that the consciousness of possessing
virtue is sufficient for happiness, was already taught
in Aristotle's time. It became a commonplace with
the Stoics in the next generation, and has found
votaries in every succeeding age. So far from being
a paradox, it is a mark of the sanity of Aristotle's
philosophy that it avoids this exaggeration. Life
with him is no abstraction from the circumstances of
Hfe._jThe good man who is overwhelmed by great
misfortunes can indeed never be miserable. The
essential nobility of his character can never be wholly
obscured. Even at the crisis of his misfortunes it
will " shine out." * Yet it would be a paradox to call
turn happy. To do so is, as Grant says, to take
" the greatness of a man in misfortunes as though it
were identical with his happiness," or, as Jowett still
more subtly puts it, to confuse our own idea of
happiness with the consciousness of it in another.

4. The force of Aristotle's criticism of the money-,
making life as " contrary to nature " may not at first \
strike the modern reader. It is common to oppose
the " natural " to that which is distinctly human, as
that which comes earlier and is more closely allied
* I. c. x. § 12.

II. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS. 37

to our lower or animal nature. To Aristotle, how-(
ever, the nature of man is not that out of which he
has developed, but that into which he is developing ;
not what he is at the lowest, but what he is at the
highest ; not what he is born as (to borrow a happy
distinction), but what he is born for.* Now we
already know what, according to Aristotle, man is
born for. He is born for life in a city-statej And
this implies two things which distinguish such a life
from every other form. In the first place, it is social.
The activities of which it consists are directed to
common as distinguished from merely personal ends.
In the second place, it has a definite form. It consists
of activities directed to objects the limit of whose
desirableness is fixed by their relation to the common
purpose of the whole. In both these respects the
money-making life is unnatural, (a) So far from
falling in with man's true end, it distorts and de
grades life, turning social activities, e.g. the arts
of national defence, and the healing of the sick,f
which should minister to fulness of social life, into
mere means of private gain, (b) There is no limit
to such a life. The money-maker goes on ac
cumulating without limit; there is, as we say, no
end to it. "Ask a great money-maker what he
wants to do with his money — he never knows.
He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He
gets it only that he may get it. 'What will you

* Bosanquet's Philosophical Theory of the State, p. 130.
t Politics, Bk. I. c. 9 (see Note C), which ought to be read in
connexion with the present passage.

38 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

make of what you have got ? ' you ask. ' Well, I'll
get more,' he says. Just as at cricket you get
more runs. There's no use in the runs, but to get
more of them than other people is the game. And
there's no use in the money, but to have more of it
than other people is the game." * All this comes
of making that which has meaning and purpose only
in connexion with a wider end, into an end in itself.
Aristotle, as we shall see, has no objection to great
riches in itself. It is the necessary condition of
one of his highest virtues, viz. magnificence. What
he objects to is the indefinite pursuit of wealth irre
spective of any social end which is served by it.

§ 5. Attributes of Happiness.

[I. c. vii. §§ 3 foil.]

Aristotle sums up the contents of the preceding
chapters by claiming for happiness that it possesses the
three attributes of finality, self-sufficiency, and supreme
desirableness, warning us at the same time against
^^misunderstanding the sense in which the two last are
to be taken.

(a) The reader might hastily assume that by self-
sufficiency was meant the~p^ower"o7 Tendering _a man
"independent of society. But this wouIdTbe"a mistake.
^Vhatever else tEeTiappy life is, it must be a whole
or complete life, and this we have already seen is
impossible unless it is a life which is lived in society.
Man is a political animal, and you might as well

r

* Ruskin's Crown of Wild Olive.

II. OPINIONS AS TO HAPPINESS. 39

speak of making him independent of himself as of
making him independent of his society or polls. The
life which is truly good and happy is in need of
nothing ; not in the sense of having no conditions —
this would be equivalent to having no contents — but in
the sense that it alone is the complete expression of
the man. It alone leaves no element in his nature
unaccounted for ; and therefore it alone is completely
satisfying.

(b) Similarly, in claiming for it that it is "the most
desirable thing" in the world, Aristotle wishes the
reader to understand that it is not one among other
'things with which it may be compared. It is, as George
Eliot says, that which "we would choose before
everything else because our souls see it to be good,"
but in so choosing it we do not conceive of it as one
among other goods which by being added to it might
make it more desirable still. It is not one among
others. It is that which includes all others. But
even so we must be careful how we take it. It is not
merely the sum of all other goods. It includes them,
but at the same time it is more than all of th^rn
together. For happiness is a " natural " or organic things J
and the essence of things organic^isthatJbe__uM
more than the sum of its parts. fAs~tH?Tree orlrnlmal
is the expression of the soul or moving nrinciple of
life organizing and transforming the parts, sd happiness
is the form in which reason— the soul of human life
--expresses itself in its function of limiting and
organizing the elements which go to make up lifey
"he man, therefore, who takes reason as his guicTe

3

40 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP. II.

values the elements, parts or details of life, not for
themselves — this, as we have seen in the case of wealth,
would be to destroy all order and limit — but for the
sake of the organized life to which they contribute.T?)n
the other hand, as Professor Stewart says, the man
who lives by sense and imagination becomes immersed
in these details. " Life or happiness is for him a
mere succession of particular experiences — an indefinite
sum of good things which never satisfies him. To
the external view he may seem to be ' happy,' because
the material conditions or elements of happiness are
separately present, but the transforming spirit is in
wardly wanting.

' Er hat die Theile in seiner Hand
Fehlt leider nur das geistige Band.'

He is receptive of isolated impressions ; he lives as
passion directs ; he does not assert personality in
active functions." *

* Op. cit. i. p. 97.

CHAPTER III.

THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS.

" Happiness consists in doing the things we were made for."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

§ I. Aristotle's Method. Is it Inductive or Deductive?
[[. c. vii. §§ 9 foil.]

AT the beginning of the last chapter it was pointed
out that Aristotle proceeds from criticism of current
opinions to an independent analysis, from which he
returns to the ordinary judgments of mankind as to
the nature of happiness and the things to be looked
for in it, with the view at once of verifying his own
theory and enabling us the better to understand the
truth which popular judgments contain. The inter
mediate stage of this method is that at which we
should expect to find an illustration of his reiterated
statement that ethics is an inductive science, proceed
ing from facts to principles. But instead of the
marshalling of facts from which an inductive generali
zation as to the true grounds of happiness may be
made, we seem to have a series of unsupported;
assertions as to the " function " of man, from which
his definition is deductively arrived at. " Much as

42 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

Aristotle speaks," says Grant, "of the logic of the
science, we find, when we come to examine his real
procedure, how little he is influenced by his own
abstract rules of method. It is plain that he has
deserted his former view of the science as inductive ;
he now makes it depend on a general conception of
the chief good, which is to be applied and developed."

We might answer this criticism by pointing out, as
Professor Stewart does, that it is a mistake to draw a
hard-and-fast line between deduction and induction.
In the investigation of complex subjects the common
method of procedure is by hypothesis and verification,
i.e. by the statement of a general proposition "on
evidence avowedly insufficient," with the view of after
wards testing it by comparison with the facts. Such
a process, although involving deduction, is allowed by
all logicians to be essentially inductive. Some, e.g.
Jevons,* even maintain that it is the type of all
induction. In this broad sense Aristotle's method
may be said to be inductive. Taking his "data"
and the conclusion from them as merely provisional,
he goes on, in chap. viii. § I, to test them in the
light of the facts — in this case "the opinions that
are held upon the subject."

But it is also worth pointing out that Grant's
criticism rests on a confusion between scientific
investigation and scientific exposition. Because a
philosopher chooses to expound his subject by a
preliminary statement of the general results at which

* " All inductive investigation consists in the marriage of hypothesis
and experiment " (Principles of Science, p. 504).

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 43

by a previous process of observation and analysis
he has arrived, using the " facts " rather by way of
illustration, it shows rather a narrow conception of
logical method to accuse him of deserting the narrow
way of observation and experience for the high a
priori road. His data are in reality careful inductions
from the facts of mind on the one hand, and the
actual moral judgments of mankind on the other.
As a matter of convenience, Aristotle prefers here to
start from them as though they were independent
of a previous process of observation and analysis.

§ 2. The Parts of the Definition. Happiness as
Performance of Function.

[I. c. vii. § 14.]

It will be convenient in this chapter to follow the
order in which the various elements of Happiness are
mentioned in the definition.

I. Happiness, we are told, is "the performance
of function," "activity of the soul according to ex
cellence," the manifestation of " the highest virtue in
living energy." It may serve to bring out the meaning
of this part of the definition if we compare it with a
doctrine with which we have been made familiar in
our own time, and with which it has sometimes been
identified. " Blessed is he," says Carlyle, "who has
found his work ; let him ask no other blessedness.
He has a work, a life-purpose ; he has found it, and
will follow it. Labour is life : from the inmost heart
of the worker rises his God-given Force, awakens him

44 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

to all knowledge— self-knowledge and much else—
so soon as work fitly begins." *

Between this doctrine and Aristotle's there is much
in common. They are both a protest against the
attempt to identify happiness with any mere state
of passive satisfaction, e.g. pleasure. To say with Car-
lyle that " Man's Unhappiness comes of his Greatness ;
it 'is because there is an Infinite in him which with all
his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite "
(in spite of what is sometimes said of the absence
of the sense of the Infinite in ancient ethics), is only
to express in modern terms what Aristotle means
when he says that happiness consists in an activity
of the soul. They are at one, too, in denying that
it is anything external to a man. When Carlyle,
in the same passage, pillories the idea of happiness
as an " overplus" in wages that fortune can give us,
and points us instead to the "God-like that is in
man, in which only has he Strength and Freedom,"
he repeats what Aristotle says when he denies that
happiness is something that is given by chance or
by the gods. But with these negative points the
agreement ends. Thus nothing could be further
from Aristotle's meaning than the identification of
happiness with "work." To Aristotle life is more
than labour, the man than the workman. True,
there are some cases — Aristotle would have quoted
his own — in which a man's work may be identical
with the highest happiness, for it may be of such a
kind as to call forth the highest faculties of the soul,

* Past and Present, Bk. III. c. 1 1 (condensed).

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 45

and be a source of true enjoyment. With the average
Greek citizen, however, the case was necessarily
different, seeing that his "work," so far as he had
any, necessarily consisted to a large extent of the
ordinary business of domestic or civic administration ;
and though the exercise of the virtues concerned in
these must always form a constituent element in
happiness, Aristotle would have denied that they could
ever be co-extensive with it. Different though the
state of society which Aristotle had in view was
from that with which we are familiar, there is little
doubt that his ideal, implying as it does, in addition
to the activities that are exercised in gaining a
livelihood, the need for leisure and opportunity for
the exercise of the higher faculties, is the truer one
of the two. It is certainly true that under modern
conditions of specialized labour, full play is denied to
many of the higher human faculties, for the exercise
of which we are driven to look more and more to the
opportunities afforded by increase of leisure and access
to the higher forms of enjoyment. It is one of the chief
merits of Aristotle's definition that, though formulated
in view of the aristocratic society of the Greek city,
it is in harmony, mutatis mutandis, with the ideal which
reformers have put forward as the only one which it is
possible to accept for modern industrial communities.

§ 3. Happiness and Prosperity.

[I. c.viii. §§15-17; i*- §7-]

2. In these sections Aristotle deals with the ever-
recurring question of the relation between the internal

46 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

and the external in happiness. He has already
shown* that, as essentially an exercise of faculty,
happiness must rank primarily as internal good.
Happiness by its very nature is something intrinsic
to the soul ; as we should say, it is spiritual good.
It consists not in what we have, but in what we are
/ and do. So far is it from being true that happiness
depends on good fortune, that no amount of evil
fortune can make a good man really unhappy, no
amount of good fortune can make the bad man really
happy.

But although external goods are not happiness,
nor any part of happiness, yet it is characteristic of
Aristotle's view that they stand in a close relation to
it. The two passages which throw most light on this*
point are chap. viii. §§ 15 and 16 : "There are many
things that can be done only through the instrumen
tality of friends and wealth and political influence.
Moreover, there are some things the absence of
which casts a stain upon perfect happiness, e.g. birth,
fine children, good looks ; " and chap. ix. § 7, where
"other goods" are divided into "those that are
necessary as conditions of happiness, and those that
are useful as aids and instruments." Taken together,
these passages give us three degrees of relationship
corresponding to Ahej^rceo£tl^ir^. responsiveness
to the action of mind and will.

(a) First, as the most remote from happiness, we
have things which when they are present add a
lustre to happiness, when absent cast a stain upon -

* c. viii. § 2.

HI. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 47

it, but cannot be said to be necessary to or even an
element in it, e.g. noble ancestors, good children.
(fr) There are things that are aids to happiness, as
his tools are to the workman, e.g. friends, wealth,
public influence. They may even be said to be
necessary for the complete fruition of human happi
ness. We shall see hereafter how friends are so in
a peculiar sense, being required by the happy even
more than by the unhappy. But they are not
indispensable conditions. The highest form of
happiness — that which we ascribe to God — is
independent of them, (c) Finally, we have things
so closely related to happiness, that, though not
elements in it, they are conditions of it. To this class
Aristotle would have assigned bodily health, sound
intelligence, membership of a civilized community,
time. These are not elements in happiness, any
more than rain and earth are elements in the plant,
yet they are the natural soil out of which happiness
springs.

Leaving for the moment the last of the con
ditions here mentioned, viz. that of time, which
raises difficulties of its own, the modern reader is
not likely to deny that happiness depends to a large
extent on favourable circumstances. It is true that
the asceticism latent in Christian ethics has always
been suspicious of external prosperity, and has even
stigmatized it as a hindrance to the good life. The
experience, however, which our own age has accumu
lated of the value of increased power over external
nature in extending the range of man's faculties and

48 ^.CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

opening new sources of social and intellectual enjoy
ment, is working a rapid change. What, for instance,
could be more in the spirit of Aristotle than the follow
ing passage, taken almost at random from the current
teaching of Christianity upon the place of wealth and
leisure as contributing to happiness ? " A genius here
and there may rise above these depressing conditions

' (i.e. poverty and drudgery) ; and though he may be
a stronger man because he has risen, he may also be
a harder man because he has had to go through so
much. The hero is the man who rises despite his
surroundings, and there will always be scope for

/ heroic virtue ; but the good man is called to make
the most of his opportunities, and the greater his
opportunities the fuller and richer may his personal
life become. The man with many opportunities who
makes the most of them is not more meritorious
than the man with few opportunities who makes the

, most of them ; but though not a more meritorious
man, he is in many respects a better man — more
richly endowed and more highly cultivated." *

The change here indicated contains the implicit
recognition of the truth that underlies Aristotle's
teaching on this head, viz. that the current distinction
between internal and external, character and circum
stances, is a fallacious one. " Circumstances " are
the medium in which will and character (in the
exercise of which happiness consists) realize them
selves, and are no more capable of being separated
from them than space and matter are from the laws

* The Rev, Dr. Cunningham, Use and Abuse of Money, p. 41.

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 49

of nature which express themselves through them, or
than the non-ego or object is from the subject or
ego, which manifests itself in it. The question is not
whether external circumstances are necessary to
happiness or not, but in what degree of connexion
any particular^ class of circumstances stands to happi
ness. This, as Aristotle's classification suggests,
depends upon the degree in which they can be made
to respond to the action of will and character ; in other
words, to the degree of their adaptability to moral ends.

§ 4. Time as an Element in Happiness.

[I. c. vii. § 16 j ix. §10; x. § 15.]

3. What Aristotle says about length of clays as a
condition of happiness is apt to cause a difficulty, as
it might seem to be in contradiction to the general
spirit of the definition. If happiness consists in
performance of function, it would seem as though it
depended on the quality rather than the quantity of
our days.

" How long we live, not years but actions tell." *

Cf. Ben Jonson's

" It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall at last dry, bald, and sere.
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night —
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be."

E

50 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

This objection Aristotle would have admitted to
a great extent. Mere length of days, with their
prolonged enjoyments, was no essential element in
his conception any more than it was in that of the
educated Greek world generally.* In this spirit he
elsewhere recognizes that a right-minded man will
prefer one great and glorious deed to many ordinary
ones (IX. viii. 9).

,To understand why, notwithstanding, he lays so
mucVstress on " a full term of years," we must take
this part of the definition along with what is said in
chap. ix. Aristotle is there protesting against the
idea that happiness may be a gift of fortune — a
protest not less necessary then in view of the
suggestion of something supernatural, i.e. accidental,
conveyed in the etymology of eudaemonia, than now
in view of a similar suggestion of " hap " or chance.
His argument is that to conceive of happiness in
this way is at once to narrow its possession, and to
detract from its dignity. Happiness is not a gift of
the gods ; if it were we should have to think of it
as something uncovenanted and exceptional, not as
something attainable by man as man, and in this
sense universal. Moreover, such a view is inconsis
tent with the ordered completeness of the happy life,
which can only be the result of some steady prin
ciple of causation, such as we find in the sustained
endeavour of communities of men.f

* See the well-known story in Herodotus, i. 30, 31, where no em
phasis is laid on the duration of happiness.
t See Professor Stewart's paraphrase of chap, ix., op. cit. i. p. 131.

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 51

Now the steady principle upon which our chief
^reliance must be placed, is, of course, education, and
this requires time. The difficulty, therefore, is solved
by noting that when he insists that "as one swallow
or one warm day does not make Spring, so a single
day or a short time of happiness does not make a
man blessed or happy," Aristotle is thinking of time'
as necessary, not for the full enjoyment of happiness,
but for the full development of the powers and
capacities in the exercise of which it consists.

§ 5. T/ie Happiness of Children.
[I. c. ix. § 10.]

This explains what to the modern reader will
appear perhaps the chief paradox of these sections
— the statement in chap. ix. § 10, that happiness is
not for children. " If children cannot be happy," we
are apt to ask, "who can?" We are sometimes
even inclined to go to the opposite extreme, and to
attribute to them a happiness higher both in degree
and kind than falls to ourselves ; * a view to which
educational theory has not been slow to respond.

It is in this spirit that some modern writers have
besought us to think less of the man and more of the
child in what we call ''preparation for life." "What

* This was Shelley's view :

" Blest in death and life beyond man's guessing,
Little children live and die possessed
Still of grace that keeps them past expressing

Blest."

52 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

must we think," cries Rousseau, the representative here
as elsewhere of leading modern tendencies, " of that
barbarous education which sacrifices the present for
an uncertain future, which loads a child with chains
of every sort, and begins by making him miserable,
in order to prepare for him long in advance some
pretended happiness which it is probable he will
never enjoy ? . . . Love childhood, encourage its
sports, its pleasures, its amiable instincts. Humanity
has its place in the order of things, and infancy has
its place in the order of human life. We must
consider the man in the man, and the child in the
child." *

To ask these questions and emphasize this opposi
tion between the child and the man merely shows
how far we have drifted from Aristotle's conception.
It is to overlook thejundamentaj^distinction between
freedom from responsibility and the heightened power
of animal enjoyment that goes along with it and the
higher human happiness that comes of the harmonious
exercise of developed faculties. However gay and
light-hearted a child's life may be, it is a misnomer
to call it happy, except and in so far as the activities
of which it consists foreshadow the life of manly
purposes for which it is a preparation. Rousseau's
protest had, of course, its value at the time as a
criticism of the artificial and ascetic ideals of education
then in vogue. It is still more valid perhaps to-day
against the system of education or no education which,
in spite of recent improvements, permits so large a

* Emile, Bk. II. See Payne's abridgment, p. 44-

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 53

sacrifice in field and factory of the life and happiness
appropriate to children. But what it is important to
notice is, that besides the wrong to the child, there is
the deeper wrong to the man. The u barbarousness "
consists in losing hold, not so much of the ideal of the
child, as of the ideal of the man. By our treatment
of the child we leave so stunted a stalk that no
healthy growth of happiness can be expected from it.
For the rest, as the child is father of the man, the
child's happiness, to be true, must be father of the
man's. There is really no inconsistency here. The
truest child-enjoyments are those which prepare for
the enjoyments of manhood. What is wanted is not
the vulgar conception of happiness as the gratifica
tion of the senses " made down " to children, but an
enlarged conception of what we mean by the hap
piness of a man, and the preparation that is required
for it.

§ 6. The Stability of Happiness.

[I. C.X. §§!-!!.]

4. The sections in which Aristotle discusses the
stability and permanence of happiness are apt to
strike us as somewhat unreal and even trivial. It is
difficult to recognize in the problem as here formu
lated, what Professor Stewart calls " the most pressing
question the moralist has to do with." For, after all,
we are not very likely, as we have seen, to confuse
happiness with good fortune, or to found a general
argument against the possibility of happiness upon the

54 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

proverbial fickleness of fortune. Yet there is a deeper
form of pessimism, which has been made familiar to
us in modern times, and of which we may take the
present passage without unwarrantable straining as a
criticism. This begins in admitting with Aristotle that
happiness does not consist in external goods, but in

, an inward state which is the result of harmonious
activities. It denies, however, that any such state is
truly attained except momentarily. Happiness must
satisfy desire — is the satisfaction of desire — but desire
is from its very nature insatiable. One appetite is no
sooner satisfied than another makes itself felt. Con
sciousness, in fact, consists in the passage of the soul
from one form of unrest to another. So long as con
sciousness lasts, the settled state of peace required by
our conception of happiness is, from the nature of the

i case, unattainable. In the unconsciousness of death
alone there is rest and completeness. For a deeper
reason than Solon's the modern pessimist can repeat
his maxim, " Call no man happy till his death." *

Now, if we admit the assumptions that underlie
this argument, viz. that man is essentially a bundle
of desires, and that happiness consists in the feeling
of rest which accompanies their satisfaction, it will
be difficult to avoid the conclusion that happiness is
essentially unstable, and therefore unattainable. The
student, however, who has followed with conviction
the line of Aristotle's thought in these sections will

&K- prepared to see the fallacy that is here involved,
n, we have agreed, is not definable as a bundle of
* Cp. Hobbes, quoted p. 13 above.

III. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 55

desires, nor his happiness as the feeling of pleasure
incident to their satisfaction. His life, we have seen,
is a system of rational activities — a system which is
foreshadowed in his inherited instincts, but developed
into stable elements of character by the education he
receives in a civilized community. His happiness
consists in finding scope for his powers in the ordered
life which such a society makes possible. The man,
therefore, who, as the result of education in a well-
governed community, has become master of himself
and all his faculties, has an abiding source of peace
within himself/jTo such a man the recurring motives
and desires of everyday life represent no disturbance
of the central equilibrium or invasion of his happiness,
but the means through which the potentialities of his
nature are called into active exercise. It is true that
desire when it is present necessarily involves pain and
unrest. But it is doubtful, in the first place, whether
desire in the pessimist's sense plays any large part in
the normal life of the good man at all. And in the
second place, even although we grant that desire in the
sense of a feeling of unrest still continues to play a
part in the best ordered life, it no more constitutes
a disturbance of its equilibrium than the outward bend
of its stalk to the stimulation of the sunshine, the
downward push of its roots to the stimulation of the
earth^are a disturbance of the equilibrium of the plant.
Andthe reason is that the lifelong habits of thinking
and acting upon which this equilibrium rests are
nothing less than the man himself. They are what we
mean by his character or personality. The happiness,

56 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP. III.

therefore, that consists in its exercise is as abiding as

this is. Nothing can unsettle it which does not unsettle

him, and though we shall not call one who suffers

the fate of a Priam or a Lear happy, yet if he still

> retains command of himself he can never be miserable.

fSo far, therefore, from being the most unstable of a

/ man's possessions, as the pessimist holds, happiness

is the stablest. It is stabler even Jhan knowledge

and science. A man may forget what he once knew,

but so long as life and personality hold together he

cannot, except momentarily, forget himself; and to

remember one's self in this sense is to be happy.

* See Note E.

( 57 )

CHAPTER IV.
THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS.

" Let us not always say,
Spite of this flesh to-day

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us say all good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more

Now than flesh helps soul."

BROWNING.

§ i. Aristotle s Doctrine of the Relation between
Soul and Body.

[I. c. xiii.]

THE meaning of our definition of Happiness hinges
upon the sense in which we take the term Virtue or
Excellence. The sections before us establish three
general positions : (a) it is excellence of the soul ;
(&) it is excellence of the rational part of the soul ;
(c) of this excellence there are two forms — a lower
or moral, and a higher or intellectual. It is thus
natural that the emphasis throughout should be laid
upon the distinctions on which these positions
depend, viz. that between (a) body and soul ; (b) the
irrational and the rational soul; (c) the moral and
the intellectual in the human soul, rather than upon the

58 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

unity that underlies them. With other fuller statements
of the sense in which these distinctions — and especially
(a) and (b) — are to be taken, behind him (see § 9),
Aristotle was the less concerned to dwell upon the
latter question here. For the English reader to
whom these distinctions are apt to suggest a deeper
division than that between the "convex and concave
of a circle" (§ 10), a more careful statement of the
relation of the " parts " of man's nature to each other
may not be out of place.

Beginning with the first, and inquiring how Aristotle
defines the relation between soul and body, we find
the most succinct statement of it in his treatise on
Psychology. "Soul," he there says, "is the simplest)
actuality of a natural body which has the potentiality'
of life." * But this explanation, to say the least of it,
is not self-explanatory. What is meant by actuality
and potentiality ? These phrases introduce us to one
of the central conceptions of Aristotle's philosophy,
of which a word must be said.

Created beings are conceived of by Aristotle — in a
form which the modern theory of evolution renders
easily comprehensible— (as a series in which each lower
type is related to that which is aboye it, as matter
to form or the potential to the actual.] This relation
manifests itself even in inorganic matter. We may
say, for example, that marble exists potentially in the
chemical materials of which it is composed. But the
most striking examples are found in the field of

* De Anima, II. c. i. § 6. See Wallace's Aristotle's Psychology,
p. 61.

IV. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 59

organic life, and in the productions of human art.
In the former we have a hierarchy of forms which
find their final reality in the life of man, who sums
up while he transcends all that went before. In the
latter the means, e.g. the marble, stands to the end
— the statue or the temple column — as the matter
to the form, the potential to the actual.

Returning to Aristotle's doctrine of the soul, we
find in it merely an application of this general theory.
At a certain point in this series, viz. that known as the
organic, or, as Aristotle calls it, " natural " body, we
find matter endowed with life. But it is a mistake
to conceive of these two, which popular language
distinguishes as body and soul, as essentially distinct
from each other. The soul is not a mysterious
substance lodged in another substance called body.
It stands to body as the statue to the marble, or,
better still, as the active function to the organ. If,
says Aristotle, we were to conceive of the axe as
the body, "then its axehood, or its being an axe,
would constitute its essential nature or reality, and
thus, so to speak, its soul ; because, were this axehood
taken away from it, it would be no longer an axe.
... If the eye were possessed of life, vision would
be its soul, because vision is the reality which ex
presses the idea of the eye. The eye itself, on the
other hand, is merely the material substratum for
vision, and when this power of vision fails, it no
longer remains an eye, except in so far as it is still
called by the same name, just in the same way as
an eye carved in stone or delineated in painting is

60 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

also so described. ... In the same way, then, as
cutting is the full realization of an axe, or actual
seeing the realization of the eye, so also waking
may be said to be the full realization of the body.
. . . The body, on the other hand, is merely the
material to which soul gives reality ; and just as the
eye is both the pupil and its vision, so also the living
animal is at once the soul and the body in connexion."*
It is clear that we are here far beyond the popular
dualism, according to which body and soul are two
separate entities, temporarily related to each other in
a mysterious way. It is true that Aristotle does not
consistently maintain himself at the point of view
here indicated. He even hints, towards the end of
the same passage, that though the soul as a whole is
inseparable from the body, it is yet conceivable that
" some parts of it " may be separable because related
to the body in a different way from the other parts,
adding, " It is further matter of doubt whether soul
as the perfect realization of body may not stand to
it in the same separable relation as a sailor to his
boat." But the view above given is the one which is
the most consistent with his philosophy as a whole,
and will be admitted to be far the more interesting
and suggestive of the two.f Aristotle had, of course,

* De An. II. c. i. §§ 8 foil. (Wallace's tr., p. 63; cp. his introd.,
p. xlv.).

f Grant's remark (op. cit. i. p. 296) — " As long as the soul is described
as bearing the relation to the body of sight to the eye, of a flower to
the seed, of the impression to the wax, we may be content to consider
this a piece of ancient physical philosophy. Our interest is different
[he means : more justly claimed] when the soul is said to be related to
the body ' as a sailor to his boat ' " — seems just the reverse of the truth.

IV. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 6 1

no notion of the structure of the nervous system and
the close connexion which modern physiology has
established between mental operations and cerebral
changes, but he here anticipates the results forced
upon us by these facts, which make the crude dualism
of popular opinion no longer tenable. As he himself
says, " The definition we have just given should make
it evident that we must no more ask whether the
soul and the body are one than ask whether the
wax and the figure impressed upon it are one, or
generally inquire whether the material and that of
which it is the material are one.'"

On this ground he rejects the doctrine of the
Pythagoreans that the same soul may inhabit different
bodies, as inconsistent with its individuality. If we
suppose that the body exists as the tool or instrument
of the soul, to say that the same soul may equally
well inhabit several bodies is as much as to say that
a carpenter may serve himself in his trade equally
with a flute or with an axe.

The theory here stated, by making soul completely
dependent on body, might seem at first sight to
approximate to the materialistic hypothesis. It is true
that Aristotle avoids the cruder form of materialism
which simply identifies body and soul by describing
the latter as the "function" or " realization " of the
body. But it is doubtful whether this of itself would
save him ; for the function of a body, e.g. of a muscle,
may be said after all to be nothing more than the body
itself in a particular condition or in the execution
* De An. IL c. i. § 7 (Wallace's tr., p. 61).

62 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

of particular movements.* The truth is, however,
that function or realization, in Aristotle's language, is
far more than a mere condition or mode of motion.
The function is that which gives form to the body,
being the end or purpose for which the body exists.
True, the body must be there before the function can
be performed ; a particular organ must be developed
before it can be used. But it is a mistake to say that
the organ is the cause of the function. The truth, in
fact, is just the contrary. The function is the cause of
the organ. This is true even in the physiological sense
that the organ is developed under the stress of the
need to perform the act. It is still truer in the philo
sophical sense that we only understand the organ
when we take it in connexion with the function it
performs. All this is well brought out by Aristotle
himself, who criticizes Anaxagoras for saying that
man is intelligent because he has hands. This is the
reverse, or at least only one side of the truth. It
would be truer to say that man has hands because he
is intelligent ; " for the instrument must be fitted to
its work, not the work to the instrument." f Aristotle
is thus as far as possible removed from the point of
view of modern materialism, which asserts that mind
can only be known through a study of the material
processes which accompany it. So far is this from
being true that we can only understand the physio
logical phenomena in the light of the psychical,
which give them meaning and value.

* See Hoffding, Outlines of 'Psychology ', p. 60.

I Part. An. IV. 10. See Zeller's Aristotle^ ii. p. u.

IV. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 63

If there are still readers who fear that in thus
emphasizing the relation of soul to body we are
detracting from the spirituality of life, we may be
permitted to suspect that they have failed to grasp
the distinction, so vital to all clear thinking, between
the value and the origin of a thing — what a thing is
in itself, and the materials or the natural processes
which are its conditions. A flower is not less a flower
because of the earth out of which it springs, or a statue
a statue because it is resolvable into carbonate of lime.
The glory of the flower and of the statue is that
their materials have been transfigured in the making
of them, as it is the glory of these materials to be so
transfigured. Similarly, it is the glory of the soul to
have moulded and transfigured the body, just as it
is the glory of the body to have been moulded and
transfigured by the soul.*

§ 2. The " Parts " of the Soul.

[I. c. xiii. §§ 10 foil.]

The philosophical principle of form and matter,
which is applied to explain the relation of soul and
body, shows us also in what sense the Aristotelian
division between the " parts " of the soul as we have
it in these sections must be taken. We have already
seen that Aristotle conceives of nature as revealing
herself in a progressive series of forms, beginning with
the lower and inorganic, and rising finally to the life
of conscious reason. While nature thus presents us

* Cf. Bosanquet's Psychology of the Moral Self , pp. 124, 125.

64 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

with a continuous series of graduated forms, each of
which stands to that above it as matter to form,
means to end, yet at certain points we meet with
clearly marked divisions corresponding to popular
distinctions. Confining ourselves to organic life, we
have first the merely vegetative life of plants, with
their two main properties of growth and propagation.
Above this we have the animal forms, endowed in
addition to these with the properties of sensation, pain
and pleasure, appetite, to which we must add in the
case of some of the higher animals a large gift of
intelligence, and the rudiments of moral character.
Finally, in the rational soul of man, which is the crown
of all that goes before, we have the attribute of reason
displaying itself not only in a higher degree of
intelligence, but in the faculty of apprehending the
supersensible and entering into the meaning of the
whole.*

As separate stages of organic development, and
again, as separate elements in human nature, it is clear
enough what we are to understand by these different
" souls." But it is not so plain how we are to conceive
of their union in individual organisms. A reference,
however, to what Aristotle elsewhere says, leaves
us in no doubt as to his own view on this subject.
Thus, in criticizing Plato's threefold division of the
soul into reason, passion, and desire, Aristotle points
out that it commits the mistake of splitting up the
soul into parts, and forces us to assume, contrary to
fact, that each has a specific organ in the body. The

* Zeller, op. cit. ii. p. 21 foil.

IV. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 65

connexion is much more intimate than Plato held,
and is compared by Aristotle to the relation of a
more complex geometrical figure to a simpler. Just
as a quadrangle contains in itself two triangles, but
cannot be said to be compacted of them, so the in
dividual animal consists of the union of the vegetative
and the appetitive soul. And just as there is no
figure which is not some power of the triangle, so
there is no soul, however exalted in the scale, which
does not contain the lower. But Aristotle would
have been the first to admit that no geometrical
metaphor is adequate to express the real depth of
the connexion. The higher not only contains the
lower, but transforms it, so that it is only in the new
setting which it receives as an element in the higher
that the potentialities of the lower become apparent.*
Thus in the life of sensation and desire we have the
life of nutrition raised to a higher power, and showing
us what it had in it to become. Similarly, in the life
of thought and volition we see for the first time the
true end and purpose of sense, feeling, and appetite.

Applying this to the division before us : when
Aristotle tells us that the soul of man consists of
three parts — a vegetative or purely irrational, a
sensitive or appetitive, which is partly rational and
partly irrational, and a purely rational — we are prepared
to understand in what sense these expressions must
be taken.

* The most suggestive of Aristotle's formulae for expressing the
relation of form to matter is that by which he describes the form as
" that which the matter was all along " (TO rl -f\v tlvat).

66 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

1. In the first place there can here be nothing
purely irrational in the sense that it is not adapted to
the end of the whole. The physical and merely
vegetative part of man already bears the stamp of
his reason. There is even, as Professor Stewart points
out, a sense in which it is the conscious product of
reason. It is true that as conscious individuals we
have little to do with the form and physical growth
of our bodies. But it is not true that the body has
reached its present stage of development independently
of the action of conscious purpose. Apart altogether
from sexual selection, where the purpose may be said
to be unconscious, we have the conscious reason of
the community, acting inter alia through prescribed
forms of physical education, and sensibly modifying
the inherited structure of the physical organism.

2. It is all the more important to try to define
accurately what is implied in the general philosophy
sketched above as to the relation between reason
and desire, that Aristotle's own expressions in the
passage before us are not carefully selected. Thus
m §§ J5 an<3 1 8, he does not hesitate to class desire
as "irrational," while his metaphor in §§ 15 and 16 of
the paralytic limb does not mend matters, but, as Grant
remarks, is apt to suggest the parallel passage in the
Epistle to the Romans, where St. Paul describes
the opposition between the "law of my mind," and
"the law in my members." The reader who has
followed the above account of Aristotle's guiding
conception will have no difficulty in seeing how
wholly contrary to the spirit of his doctrine any such

IV. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 67

interpretation would be. On the one hand, the " law
in the members " is not something essentially different
from "the law of the mind" — desire from reason.
According to Aristotle there is a natural tendency in
the desires and impulses to fall into an order or system
which more or less reflects the order required by the
social environment.* On the other hand, the life of
reason does not mean the uprooting of the animal
desires, but the subordination of them to the human
purposes which they themselves already foreshadow
It is true, indeed, that in the man of imperfect self-
control there does appear to be such a division as is
here suggested. But this is because he represents
the stage of transition from the lower stage at which,
as in the intelligent animal or docile child, the
harmony between reason and passion is merely
implicit, to the higher in which, as in the man of
perfected self-control, it has become the conscious
principle of life. When the transition has been made
we find that the higher harmony has been obtained,
not at the expense of the lower or animal nature by
suppressing or maiming it, but by developing the
rational principle it foreshadows and reproducing on
the higher plane of conscious life the completeness
which the unconscious possesses on a lower.

§ 3. Moral and Intellectual Virtue.

[I. c. xiii. § 19.]

If we apply the same principle to the different
forms of virtue or capacity with which these sections

* See p. 70.

68 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

end, we shall see how little support the ordinary
dualism between morality and intelligence, practice and
theory, receives from the Aristotelian division.

(a) On the broad distinction between the morally
good life, manifesting itself in such " virtues" as self-
mastery and liberality, and the life of intellectual
insight as typified in the wise administration of one's
own and other people's affairs, Aristotle, as we shall
see, shows no tendency to suppose that a man can
be good in the full sense without being intelligent
and thoughtful. The life of prudence he consistently
conceives of (as we should expect from his general
view of the relation of higher forms of reality to
lower) as the end to which the life of conformity to
moral and social traditions points, and in which it finds
its reality. According to this view, to be good is to be
on the road to wisdom ; to be wise is to know where
goodness points and what it means.

(b) It is true that in his conception of the relation
between the lower and the higher form of the " in
tellectual " life (prudence or practical wisdom, and
thought or philosophy) Aristotle leaves us in some
uncertainty, and that there are passages where he
seems to have in view as the highest development of
human capacity a life only negatively related to the
active duties of citizenship. Whatever difficulties this
uncertainty may cause in dealing with the text, from
the side of Aristotle's philosophical principles there is
no justification for any such dualism between the life
of the practical man and of the thinker. According to
these principles, the purpose of thought and reflection

IV. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 69

is not to remove us from practice, but to raise practice
to a higher plane. To separate thought from action

' is as fatal to a true understanding, not only of the
spirit of the Aristotelian philosophy, but of life, as
to separate soul from body, form from content.
Separated from the life of action, the life of re-

' flection becomes unreal ; separated from reflection,
the life of action becomes unmeaning. As Professor
Mackenzie puts it in his pointed treatment of this
subject: "A life of pure reflection would never
acquire any positive content. It would have prin
ciples, but no facts to apply them to ; yet it is by
contact with such facts that the principles themselves
grow. It is experience that tests them and sends us
back again to improve them." * On the other hand,
the life of action without reflection, bringing our
actual achievements face to face with the ideal of
excellence which is their end, is necessarily stereotyped
and unprogressive. It is not, therefore, merely a
case of action and reaction : it is not merely
that " in retirement we criticize the acts of life ; in
life we criticize the ideas of retirement," or that
"action is the gymnastics, reflection the music, of
moral culture."! The life of action is the body and
blood of the life of thought ; the life of thought is the
soul and reason of the life of action.

* Manual of Ethics, 3rd edit. p. 364.
f Ibid. p. 366.

70 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

CHAPTER V.
THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE.

" I say, then, that pleasure and pain are the first perceptions of
children, and that these are the forms in which virtue and vice first
appear in the soul. ... By education, I mean the training that is given
by suitable habits to the first instincts of virtue in children, when
pleasure and affection, pain and hatred, are rightly implanted in souls
not yet able to understand their meaning, and who, when they attain
to Reason, find that they are in harmony with her."

PLATO.

§ i. The Roots of Virtue.
[II. c. i. § 3.]

THE account given in the last chapter of the relation
of the lower to the higher elements in man — " nature "
to "spirit" — has prepared us to hear that virtue has
its roots in natural human instincts. It is true that
good action does not come by nature, in the sense
of being an inheritable consequence of primitive
tendencies. Yet it is not contrary to nature. We
have even a natural capacity for acquiring it. In
a later passage we are told of a na.tural justice, a
natural courage, a natural modesty and self-control.*

* See Ethics, VI. c. xiii. § I (p. 274 below) ; with which we may com
pare Magna Moralia^ I. § 5 : " We are all endowed with certain natural
virtues, of which the unreasoning impulse to obey the dictates of
courage and justice is an example.1' See also Note K>fin.

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 71

As the feelings are the potentiality of thought,* so
the instincts may be said to be the potentiality or
capacity of virtue. And just as the training of the
feelings may be said to be the process of developing
a blind emotion into a rational sentiment, so moral
education may be said to be the transformation of
the blind gropings of natural instinct into the con
scious choice of what is right and good.

It need hardly be pointed out that all this is in
essential harmony with the more scientific view of
human instincts of our own time and the theory of
education founded upon it. Darwin's treatment of the
natural basis of morality in the Descent of Man\
might be taken as a comment upon the passage before
us. " As a man is a social animal, it is also probable
that he would inherit a tendency to be faithful to his
comrades, for this quality is common to most social
animals. He would in like manner possess some
capacity for self-command and perhaps of obedience
to the leader of the community. He would from an
inherited tendency still be willing to defend in concert
with others his fellow-men, and would be ready to
aid them in any way which does not too greatly
interfere with his own welfare or his strong desires."

The modern educational theories derived from
this view contrast strongly ' with those which have
their' source in the older doctrine of "original sin,"
or its modern equivalent in the writings of those
who, like Mr. Benjamin Kidd, regard man as

* Aristotle calls them "materialized thoughts,"
t Pt. I. c. iii,

72 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

essentially unsocial. So far from regarding instincts
and passions as a noxious undergrowth which has
to be removed before anything better can be implanted,
scientific theory sees in them the germ and promise
of moral capacity. It is a proof of the wholesome
influence which Aristotle's teaching exercised on
subsequent educational theory, that his followers of
the Peripatetic school clearly saw that the mistaken
attempt of the Ascetics to uproot the natural instincts
must issue in leaving the rational part of the soul
with nothing to carry it forward to the ends of
reason, nor even to give it even steerage way, "like
a pilot when the wind has dropped." *

There are, however, two features of the actions
we class as instinctive which mark them off from
those that are good or virtuous, (a) They are fitful
and capricious. Thus the unreasoning impulse to
face danger may at the critical moment be replaced
by an equally unreasoning impulse towards self-
preservation.f They therefore require to be rendered
stable by being attached to some permanent object
of human interest. A man's natural courage may in
this way become the basis of loyalty to his comrade
in arms, his regiment or his country ; his natural
modesty the basis of self-respect. What was before an
instinct may thus be developed into a moral sentiment.

* Plutarch, de Virtute Morali, 12 (quoted by Stewart).

t An interesting example is afforded by Stephen Crane's psychological
tale, The Red Badge of Coiirage. On the first day of the battle the hero,
who is a raw recruit, to his own astonishment fights like the best. On
the second day, equally to his astonishment, he incontinently runs away.
He has only natural courage.

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE.

(b) They are done in unconsciousness of the end
or purpose they are fitted to effect. There is thus
no principle acknowledged in them which can set a
limit to them, and "just as," to use Aristotle's
metaphor, "strong bodies when they move blindly
fall heavily through not having the use of their eyes,
so natural virtue is apt to come to grief." The
remedy here is to furnish the instinct with an eye ;
in other words, to train it to act in strict subordination
to a conception of social welfare more or less consciously
grasped, and thus to take its place in the organized
life of the good citizen.

If we ask how, as a matter of fact, this transforma
tion of the natural virtues takes place, the following
sections give the answer.

i- § 2. Training in Virtue.

[II. c. i. §§ 6-8 ; c. ii. §§ 6-9.]

The transforming power is here the force of habit.
It is by doing the action which is just, courageous,
etc., that stability is given to fitful, natural instinct. It
is by omitting to do it, or doing what is actually wrong,
/that the instinct is distorted and moral growth
checked. It is by training in good habit also that
at a later stage moral insight is developed. The
former process is that with which we are in the mean
time concerned.

We need hardly dwell on this side of moral training.
Aristotle is led to emphasize the truth that virtue
is habit by the comparative neglect of it in some

74 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

of the ethical theories of his time. It is true, as we
shall see hereafter, that the attempt to define morality
in terms of habit has difficulties of its own which call
for further explanation. Here, however, it is sufficient
to note that all that modern psychology teaches as
to the nature of habit has only brought home to us
more convincingly the vital connexion that exists
between what we do to-day and what we shall be
to-morrow. To quote only a single passage from
Professor James, who in his classical chapter on Habit
gives us the modern version of the Aristotelian
doctrine : " We are spinning our own fates, good or
evil, and never to be undone. Every stroke of virtue
or of vice leaves its never so little scar. The drunken
Rip Van Winkle in Jefferson's play excuses himself
for every fresh dereliction by saying, ' I won't count
this time ! ' Well, he may not count it, and a kind
Heaven may not count it ; but it is being counted
none the less. Down among the nerve-cells and
fibres, the molecules are counting it, registering and
storing it up, to be used against him when the next
temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is in strict
literalness wiped out." *

On the side of the failure to develop desirable
instincts and habits, modern psychology is no less
insistent. Thus, Professor James, dwelling on
the part that instinct plays as the basis of man's
moral and intellectual life, and lamenting its neglect
in education, emphasizes the necessity of seizing
the psychological moment for the development of it

* Principles of Psychology , i. p. 127.

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE.

by exercise.* Similarly, in respect to habit he notes
that continuity of training is the great means of
giving the right bent to character, or, as he puts it,
making "our nervous system our ally instead of our
enemy." In this -he-has the 'support of Professor Bain,
who, in a passage which he quotes, points out that
" the peculiarity of the moral habits, contradistinguish
ing them from the intellectual acquisitions, is the
presence of two hostile powers, one to be gradually
raised into the ascendant over the other. It is
necessary above all things in such a situation never
to lose a battle. Every gain on the wrong side
undoes the effect of many conquests on the right.
The essential precaution, therefore, is so to regulate
the two opposing powers that the one may have a
series of uninterrupted successes until repetition has
fortified it to such a degree as to enable it to cope
with the opposition under any circumstances. This
is the theoretically best career of moral progress." |

§ 3. The Test of Virtue.

[II. c. iii. § I.]

The test that Aristotle proposes of the completely
good act, viz. the pleasure that attends it, suggests
several difficulties. Is it; say, applicable to courage ?
Must we withhold approval from the courageous
man who faces wounds and death on the battle-field
unless he does so not only without pain but with

* Op. cit. ii. pp. 401 and 441.

t Ibid. p. 123. Cf. Bain's The Emotions and the Will, p. 440.

76 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

exhilaration and joy ? If not, we have the paradox that
the better and happier a man is the more painful the
act is likely to be, since he has the more to lose.
This difficulty is met partly by pointing out that the
virtue of courage is itself defined as a certain attitude
of mind in the presence of pain or the prospect of
pain, and that by hypothesis it involves more or
less of pain ; partly by noting that even here the
more disciplined the character, the more transient
the pain and the greater the room for the exultation
and flan which we associate with the heroic act* But
perhaps the chief difficulty which occurs to the modern
reader is not that of applying the test in special
cases, such as courage, but of applying it at all. The
doctrine seems to contradict a commonly received
idea that the greater the effort required for a good
action, the greater the virtue shown in performing
it, and that so far is it from being true that the readi
ness and ease with which an action is performed are
the test of its moral quality, that only those actions
are truly good which are done contrary to inclination
merely because they are right.

The difficulty here, which we may admit is a real
one, is met by making a distinction which throws
further light on Aristotle's doctrine — the distinction,
namely, between the virtue or excellence that is shown
in the actions .of the fully developed character, and
the merit or credit which we attribute to the actions
of the man whose character is still, so to speak, in the
gristle. It is quite true that the action of the man
* See III. ix. 2. foil. (p. 256).

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 7/

of strong undisciplined desires who succeeds in doing
what is right in spite of temptation, affects us in a
different way from that of the man who does it with
the ease and certainty of habit. We mark this
difference by speaking of the former as more meri
torious. But it would be a mistake to maintain
that it is a better action. On the contrary, if it is
the mark of a good act to be the outcome of a good
character, we must maintain that the better the
character the better the action. A closer view of
the act itself will probably convince us that this is
so. For, in the first place, the very ease with which
it is performed gives it a grace and finish that the
other wants. Pleasure, according to Aristotle, is not
merely the sign of perfection ; it is the cause of it.*
But, in the second place, the man who does his duty
" because he likes to," escapes a danger to which the
other is exposed. Such a man takes his good actions
like the events of nature, as something to be expected.
They are " all in the day's work." It does not, there
fore, strike him to approve them.f They are accord
ingly the less likely to be marred by any feeling of
self-complacency. To have won a victory over one's
self may naturally enough be a cause of self-congratu
lation. But it is also humiliating enough, when we)
come to think of it, to have had to win a victory)
over one's self at all.

* See chapter xiii. p. 201.

t Mr. Leslie Stephen says somewhere that after forty a man has no
right to have a conscience. This applies to the approval as well as
to the disapproval of conscience.

73 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.
§4. Character and Action.

[II. c. iv. §§ 1-3.]

Chapter iv. opens with the statement of an objec
tion to the theory of habit as just explained.
Seeing that good action presupposes good habit,
how can the latter have its origin in the former ?
The sections in which Aristotle states his reply are
not without obscurity, owing to a certain confusion
in the thought. In § 2 it is pointed out that the
objection rests on a failure to distinguish acts which
are formally or accidentally right, from those which
as the outcome of good character are right in the
full sense. The second part (§ 3) is a criticism of
the popular analogy between art and morality, and
the obscurity comes from the looseness of the rela
tion in which this criticism stands to the rest of the
argument. Not only does it throw no further light
on the difficulty with which the chapter opens, but
it introduces a new difficulty, viz. that of the relation
between virtue and knowledge, which is here only
partially met.

Apart, however, from the bearing of these sections
on the particular objection to which they are intended
to furnish the reply, they are interesting as throwing
light upon Aristotle's views on two questions which
naturally rise in connexion with the present discus
sion : (a) What is the relation between the goodness
of an act and the motive of it ? (b) What is the true
relation between art and morality ?

(a) The objection itself, suggested in c. iv. § i, is

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 79

perhaps not one that would naturally have suggested
itself to a modern reader. It seems quite natural
to us to separate off action on the one hand from
character and motive on the other, and we find no
difficulty in speaking of actions as good independently
of the will that they express. It is even characteristic
of the current utilitarian view to justify this distinc
tion on the ground that an action is right and good
because it " produces happiness," not because it is
the act of a good man.* And indeed it is difficult
to see how, if we grant the utilitarian contention that
the end or good is something different from virtue
or goodness, and that the good action is valuable only
in so far as it tends to produce pleasure or happiness,
the good character only in so far as it tends to
produce good actions, this conclusion can be avoided.
There is in this case no organic connexion between
good character or virtue and the end for which it
exists, and an action may be in the fullest sense
good whatever the character of the man who does it.
Now, it is true that the contrast in Aristotle's
mind is not the modern one between motive and
consequence, but between action which is the result,
say, of obedience to a command, and action which is
the outcome of a fully developed character. Yet the
statement of the objection and the reply to it have a
deeper interest for us on account of the complete
reversal of the current distinction which they imply.
According to Aristotle's view we must deny goodness
of action, however good may be its consequences,

* See Mill's Utilitarianism^ chap. ii. p. 26.

80 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

unless it is the spontaneous expression of good
character and motive. To take Mill's example, the
saving of the life of a fellow-creature, if it is done
from a wrong motive, e.g. to win the medal of the
Royal Humane Society, could only be called good
"accidentally." To be a truly good action it must be
done from rfo selfish motive, but simply because it
is the right thing to do : because, being the man he
is, the doer of it " cannot do otherwise."

If it be said that it is contrary to common sense
to deny goodness of an action which is right (in itself)
inasmuch as it produces consequences which are good
quite independently 'o/ the will that is expressed in
it, the reply is that this depends on the answer we
give to two questions, (i) What are the consequences
at which the act which is good aims ? (2) Can these
consequences really be attained if the motive is bad ?
In reply to the first question, Aristotle would have
maintained that " good " consequences are not to be
measured by the amount of pleasure to one's self and
others that the action produces. The production of
pleasure taken by itself is neither good nor evil from
the point of view of morality. "Good" consequences
in the moral sense can only mean those that make
for the increase of happiness in the sense of the
exercise of virtue or excellence, and this, as we have
just seen/ is a matter of character. It is perhaps diffi
cult to say what an ancient Greek philosopher would
have replied to so essentially modern a question as
the second of the above. It is not, however, difficult
to see that the answer that has been given to it by

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 8 1

one of his most distinguished modern followers is in
essential accordance with Aristotle's principles. Dis
cussing the question whether actions which are the
expression of a bad or imperfect character can really
have good consequences of the kind just described,
Green, says : " It is only to our limited vision that
there can seem to be such a thing as 'good effects
from an action that is bad in respect of the will
which it represents, and that in consequence the
question becomes possible whether the morality of
an action is determined by its motive or by its
consequences. There is no real reason to doubt
that the good or evil in the motive of an action is
exactly measured by the good or evil of its con
sequences as rightly estimated — estimated, that is, in
their bearing on the production of a good will or
the perfecting of mankind." [Thus to use Green's
own instance : " The good in the effect of a political
movement will correspond to the degree of good will
which has been exerted in bringing it about ; and
the effects of any selfishness in its promoters will
appear in some limitation to the good it brings
society."] " The contrary only appears to be the case
on account of the limited view we take both of action
and consequences." *

§ 5. Art and Morality.

[II. c. iv. § 3.]

(&} The organic connexion which in Aristotle's view
exists between action and character is further

* Prolegomena to Ethics, § 295.

G

82 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

illustrated by what is said in chapter iv. § 3 on the
relation between art and morality.

It is a common view that the distinction between
art and morality, the beautiful and the good, is over
looked by Greek ethics in general, and by Aristotle
in particular. The impression is founded partly on the
identity of their artistic and ethical terminology (as
Ruskin says, " There is scarcely a word in Greek social
philosophy which has not a reference to musical law,
and scarcely a word in Greek musical science which
has not an understood reference to social law ") ; partly
on the care with which the great ethical writers
themselves work out the conception of the good life,
as consisting essentially in harmony or proportion
between the different elements of human nature. It
is strengthened in the case of Aristotle by frequent
reference (e.g. I. c. vii. § 9 foil.) to the analogy between
the function of man as man and the craft of the
artist, by his picture of the happy man (e.g. I. c. viii.
§ 15) as an actor duly equipped with all the stage
properties necessary for the part he has to play in
life, but most of all by his definition of virtue as a
mean and his conception of the good act as not only
one that is harmonious in all its parts, but as one that
is done for the sake of its harmony or beauty.

How far this criticism is from the truth in respect
to happiness in general, we have already seen.
Happiness is no artificial product, but the full develop
ment of the true nature of man. As Professor
Stewart puts it : " Since the subject of ethics is the
life of man at its best (the 'good life'), it is easy to

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 83

understand that the relation of * nature/ rather than that
of 'art,' to the Good, will be present in Aristotle's mind
throughout the treatise. Human life at its best is no
mere device or means adopted by man for the sake
of something beyond itself, or better. The 'happy
man ' lives, and there is nothing better than his life.
His nature is a ' proportion ' or organism, ' right '
balanced in all its parts and containing, like the
nature of a tree, its own 'principle' and 'end ' within
itself — freely initiating functions, in the performance
of which it treats itself ' always as an end, and never
merely as a means.' " *

With regard to moral goodness, the present passage
indicates two points in which the "analogy of the
arts is misleading."

(i) In the case of art, the work itself, the "effect,"
is the important matter: "Hermes is dug up at Olympia,
and we find him beautiful as soon as we see him "
(Stewart) ; the character of the artist, or the state of
his mind in the execution of it, is quite secondary and
does not enter into our ordinary aesthetic judgments at
all. In the case of conduct, on the contrary, goodness
or badness depends, as we have seen, on the character
or habit of will of which it is the expression. However
good an action appears from the point of view of its
results, unless the attitude of will in the doer of it be
right, nothing is right. On the other hand, however
ineffective the action appears to be, if only the will
be good, all is well. We say " appears," for we have
already seen with respect to consequences apparently

* Op. cit. ii. p, 4,

84 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

good that a deeper insight into the true nature of the
consequences would probably show that imperfection
of character is faithfully reflected in the imperfection
of the results. Extending the same principle to the
failure to produce a desired effect, here also it is
probably true that, given the good will (and by good
will we mean not only " good intentions," but readiness
to spare no trouble to discover and secure the proper
means to secure our ends), failure to produce the
desired effect is only apparent. From this point of
view, we can conceive an Intelligence to which it
would be sufficient that actions should have a certain
quality of their own, and the distinction in this respect
between art and morality would have disappeared. But
this does not alter the truth of Aristotle's remark so far
as our limited human judgments are concerned. To us
it is true that the material with which the artist works
responds to his conceptions of beauty with a direct
ness which we look for in vain in the responses of so
complicated a material as the circumstances of social
life. The consequence is, that while the result comes
home to us immediately in the former case as good
or bad, our judgments on the latter are given with
hesitation and reserve.

(2) Secondly, art differs from conduct in that while
" knowledge " is an essential condition of good work in
the former, for the latter " knowledge is of compara
tively little importance." It may be well to notice, in
view of the doctrine which we have already to some
extent anticipated, and which is subsequently more fully
developed, in what sense Aristotle intends us to take

V. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 85

this distinction. There is a sense in which it is neither
true that knowledge is of supreme importance in
art, nor that it is of comparatively little importance
in morals. The artist knows well enough, and it is
a truth that we are coming more and more clearly to
recognize,* that technical knowledge of the principles
of an art apart from the practice of actual production
will carry him but a little way. On the other hand,
just as the best results are obtained from the artist
or artisan who not only possesses the dexterity that
comes of practice but understands the principles that
underlie the great traditions of his craft, so the best
" effects " are obtained in conduct (as no - one re
cognizes more fully than Aristotle himself) when a
man rises to the consciousness of the meaning and
purpose of the moral habits in which he has been
trained. The point of view, however, from which
Aristotle here looks at the subject, is not that of
4< goodness in the full sense of the word," as he after
wards calls it. He thinks of conduct in this section,
as throughout the passage, in its beginnings, and from
.the side of education. From this point of view it is
true not only that a theoretic acquaintance with the
principles of right living alone can never "do the
business for us " — any more than can a theoretic
acquaintance with the principles of art — but that in so
complicated a business as life the conscious recognition
of the principles which underlie good actions is
necessarily subsequent to careful training in the kind
of conduct which current standards recognize as good.

* See Life of William Morris, by J. W. Mackail, passim.

86 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP. V.

A man may understand the principles of art pro
duction and make a tolerable art-critic, though he
has no practical acquaintance with its material and
methods. But unless he knows in his own experience,
and as the result of a formed habit of will, the
actual feel of a moral action, it is vain to try to
make him understand the meaning of a moral
principle. So interpreted, what Aristotle says in this
section falls into line with all that has already been
said of habit as the essential condition of moral
growth.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE.

" Let us note that in every one of us there are two guiding and ruling
principles which lead us whither they will ; one is natural desire of
pleasure, the other is an acquired opinion which is in search of the best ;
and these two are sometimes in harmony, and then again at war, and
sometimes the one, sometimes the other, conquers. When opinion
conquers, and by the help of reason leads us to the best, the conquering
principle is called temperance ; but when desire which is devoid of
reason rules in us and drags us to pleasure, that power of misrule is
called excess. But excess has many names, and many members, and
many forms, and any of these forms when marked gives a name to the
bearer of the name, neither honourable nor desirable."

PLATO.

§ i. The Mean.

[II. c. vi. § 15.]

ARISTOTLE'S definition of Virtue is an illustration of
progressive analysis, each of the terms adding some
thing specific, and giving it further depth and pre
cision. We may in the present chapter take each of
the terms in succession, trying to suggest on the way
the modern problems which rise in connexion with
them.

The first part of the definition which identifies virtue
with the mean has probably obtained a wider currency
than any other philosophical formula. This makes

88 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

it all the more important to understand at the out
set exactly what is meant. It is sometimes inter
preted as though it meant moderation, and the doctrine
identified with the world-wise philosophy of the
Preacher, of Horace, and Talleyrand.* In this sense
the definition in the Ethics has been compared
with the statement in the Politics that the middle
classes with moderate means are the happiest part of
the community.f

Nothing, of course, could be further from Aristotle's
meaning. Such an interpretation is in obvious con
tradiction with his own statement that the mean
cannot be struck by a mere arithmetical process of
averages, but that it is strictly relative to the individual,
and still more obviously with the qualification in c. vi.
§ 17, that virtue is itself an extreme. Leaving the
latter in the mean time, it is sufficiently clear from the
analogy of the arts which is here employed that
the writer has in view the limitation imposed upon
the passions and desires not by average opinion and
practice, but by the ideal form of individual life.
As the artist works at the parts with his eye upon
the whole, so it is the form of his own life as a
whole that the individual must have in view in
fixing the limits within which particular impulses and
desires may be satisfied.

"Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise:
why shouldest thou destroy thyself? "

" Auream quisquis mediocritatem

Diligit tutus."

"Above all, gentlemen, let us have no zeal."
f See Macleane's Horace, n. on Odes, II. 10.

VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 89

So far is clear, but this may seem from our modern
point of view only to raise another difficulty. By
taking the "individual" as our standard instead of
the general average, we escape the ethical Scylla
of identifying morality with conventional opinion—
but only to fall into the Charybdis of making it a
mere matter of individual taste and enjoyment. On
this view, a man's life is his own ; his one duty is to
timself, viz. to live beautifully or at least prudently.

§ 2. The Mean as determined by Reason.
The answer to this difficulty is to be found in the
second part of the definition, the statement of the
standard in terms of reason. It is true that this does
not at first bring conviction to the modern reader, to
whom the word "reason" is apt to have merely a
subjective meaning, if not also to indicate merely the
insight of the individual into the conditions of his
own happiness. To the Greek, however, the word
has the objective significance of law oiTOTjtejj^as well.
It thus introduces the conception of a sfanaarcl which
is the same for all. If we ask where this standard
is to be sought, the answer has already been given
in the metaphor of the artist. It is the " whole " of
human nature, to express which in the details of
conduct is the ideal of the good man, in the same
sense as it is the ideal of the artist to harmonize the
details of his picture to the conception of the whole.
It will perhaps help us to realize more fully what
Aristotle here means, if we compare his view with
that of a modern philosopher with which it is

90 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

sometimes identified. In discussing the principle or
standard of moral judgment, Bishop Butler, in a passage
which is in reality a paraphase of Aristotle's definition,
says : " Every man in his physical nature is one
individual single agent. He has likewise properties
and principles, each of which may be considered
separately and without regard to the respects which
they have to each other. Neither of these are the
nature we are taking a view of. But it is the inward
frame of man considered as a system or constitution :
whose several parts are united, not by a physical
principle of individuation, but by the respects they
have to each other ; the chief of which is the subjec
tion which the appetites, passions, and particular
affections have to the one supreme principle of
reflection or conscience. . . . Whoever will consider
his own nature will see that the several appetites,
passions, and particular affections have different
respects amongst themselves. They are restraints
upon and are in proportion to each other. This
proportion is just and perfect when all these under
principles are perfectly coincident with conscience so
far as their nature permits, and in all cases under
its absolute and entire direction. The least excess
or defect, the least alteration of the due proportions
amongst themselves, or of their coincidence with
conscience, though not proceeding into action, is some
degree of disorder in the moral constitution." *

We have here an interesting attempt to reproduce
the Aristotelian doctrine. But there is one point in

* Sermons, III. n.

VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 9 1

which it requires correction if we would bring it into
harmony with the original. In representing "con
science," which is the equivalent of Aristotle's
" reason," as a separate principle in the soul, standing
above the other elements and imposing upon them a
law of its own, it just misses the central point of
the Aristotelian conception. Such a way of taking it
might, indeed, seem to harmonize with Aristotle's con
ception of life as a work of art. From this point of
view there is nothing to hinder us from understanding
the idea of the whole or system into which the
material has to be moulded as something imported,
like the artist's idea of the statue, from without. It
is, however, precisely this mistake that we have
guarded ourselves against by noticing the inadequacy
of the artistic metaphor to express Aristotle's true
view. In criticizing, therefore, any action or emotion,
we are directed, not to the pronouncements of an
authoritative principle which, while making itself felt
within the soul, yet has no organic connexion with
it, but simply to the inner form or constitution of
the soul itself, of which the action is the partial
manifestation. It is true, indeed (and this subjective
side of the good act is what chiefly impresses writers
of the school of Butler), that an action which succeeds
in hitting the mean or being in true proportion,
whether in imagination or in fact, is apt to be
accompanied with a peculiar feeling of satisfaction ;
an action that fails to do so, with a feeling of dis
satisfaction. And this, if we choose, we may call
" conscience "— good or bad, as the case may be. But

92 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

this feeling is not the result of the harmony (or dis
cordance) of the act with the requirements of any
separate principle, but simply represents the sense of
expansion the soul experiences in connexion with an
action which expresses its proper nature, and is
therefore "whole-hearted," or of contraction when it
fails to do so.* The criterion or standard is not this
feeling, but the form or constitution of the soul itself.
That act is good which expresses the form and
content of the whole as nature intended it to be ;
that is bad which by the excess of one impairs the
free development of others.

§ 3. " The Prudent Man"

In the above discussion we have referred to the
" whole " as the standard of the good act : the good
act being that which takes account of and includes
all the elements in a harmonious whole. The
question then rises as to the content of this "whole,"
and the direction in which we are to look for its
concrete embodiment. It is just from the point of
view of this question that the full bearing of the last
addition, viz. " as the prudent man would determine it,"
becomes apparent. It might at first appear as though
this addition were merely a verbal one,f amounting to
the substitution of the reasonable man for the abstract
reason. But taken in connexion with the meaning
of " prudence " and the " prudent man," hereafter to be
defined,:): it forms a characteristic link between the

* Cp. what is said, p. 194 foil, below, on the conditions of pleasure
and pain in general.

t See Note D. J See chapter x. below.

VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 93

abstract and the concrete. Reason is to Aristotle
the organizing principle in life, subordinating and .
adapting the parts to the purpose of the whole.
This principle finds its concrete expression in the
"prudent man," who is the living embodiment of all
that is best in the social order of his time and
country. Just as the meaning of right action can
only be understood through experience of the con
crete act, so the full meaning of the reasonable life
comes best home to us through living contact with
the reasonable man. The reason which we see in
ourselves as through a glass darkly, we meet with
in him face to face ; wisdom on our part is to seek
for wisdom in him. As one of the wise men of
our own time has put it : " All men are made
or make themselves different in their approaches
to different men, and the secret of goodness and
greatness is in choosing whom you will approach and
live with, through the crowding, obvious people who
seem to live with you." * In phrases like this we must,
moreover, recollect that to the Greek observer it was
probably much more evident than it is to us, that
the men whom he recognized as wise and great —
Solon, Pericles, Socrates — were the representatives
of what was best in the social order he saw around
him. It is true that in the case of Socrates we
seem to have an example of the wise man at issue
with the State and his time. But this was an ex
ception which proved the rule, for the condemnation
of Socrates was a rude shock to Greek sentiment, and

* R. B. Browning's Letters.

94 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

to set it in its true light Plato feels himself obliged
to put into his mouth the celebrated passage in
the Crito, in which, after showing that he owes to
Athenian institutions all that is of any value in his
life, he maintains that he departs for the other world
the victim, not of the laws, but of man. Read in this
sense, the standard to which the definition ultimately
points is that of the good man as represented by
the best types which history affords, types which
themselves in turn represent in the fullest manner
the unbroken continuity which exists between social
and individual, civic and private life.

§ 4. The Mean is itself an Extreme.
[II. c. vi. § 17.]

In spite of these explanations it is difficult for the
modern student to avoid the feeling (which is rather
deepened than dissipated in reading the further
attempt "to apply it to details" in chap, vii.) that
somehow or other the definition is inadequate, and
fails, after all, to express the true inwardness of
virtue. For does it not seem to reduce virtue to
the mere avoidance of vice — to tell us what it is not,
rather than what it is ? To return to the analogy of
the arts, is it not as though, in trying to describe the
merits of a work of art, we were to enumerate merely the
mistakes which the artist had succeeded in avoiding ?
Or, again, to take the truer analogy of a natural
organism, as though we were to describe the life of
the plant or animal as a series of lucky escapes

VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 95

from 'death ? As Grant very well puts it : " Resolve
the statue or the building into stone and the laws
of proportion, and no worthy causes of the former
beautiful result seem now left behind. So, also,
resolve a virtuous act into the passions and some
quantitative law, and it seems to be rather destroyed
than analyzed. . . . An act of bravery seems beautiful
and noble ; when we reduce this to a balance between
the instincts of fear and self-confidence, the glory of
it is gone." The difficulty, he continues, seems still
greater when we think of more distinctly Christian
virtues, such as humility, charity, forgiveness of
injuries. It is quite true that just as there is a
point where the beauty of the brave act would be
destroyed by pushing it to folly, and, again, by
controlling it into caution, so there is a point at which
humility will become grovelling, charity weak, and
forgiveness spiritless. " But there seems in them
something which is also their chief characteristic, and
which is beyond and different from this quality of
the mean." * Even the additional reference to the
prudent man does not help us here, for, after all, pru
dence or wisdom is apt to be conceived of rather as a
negative than a positive virtue — a fact which the
Greeks themselves recognized in representing the
" demon," or spirit of wisdom, in Socrates as a voice
warning him against what was wrong rather than
an inspiration as to what was right.

In reply to this it must be admitted that Aristotle's
account of virtue as a mean between two extremes

* Op. dt. i. pp. 260, 261.

96 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

fails to give us the ultimate rationale ' of moral ex
cellence. This is necessarily so. The definition is
an analysis of the general conditions which must be
observed if an act is to be good. But the goodness
of an act just consists in its individuality, in its being
what is precisely demanded of the individual by the
particular circumstances of the case. And this is
precisely what no definition — which, as the logician
would tell us, is of the general — can give.

Something like this seems to be in Aristotle's mind
when he adds the important rider to the definition :
"When, therefore, we are seeking a logical definition
of virtue, we must describe it as a mean. But we
must remember that when we look at it from the
point of view of what is best and 'well done,' it is
itself an extreme." The remark, as Grant says, shows
the admirable balance in Aristotle's mind between
the abstract and the concrete. It recalls us from the
logical analysis to the real thing that is being analyzed.
Excellence, he had begun by saying, is that which
makes a thing to be in reality what it had the poten
tiality of being. To be so —in other words, to be or
realize itself — is the good at which everything aims. To
this, man is no exception. He, also, to use Spinoza's
phrase, tries to persevere in his own essence. He
struggles to be what he truly is, and to realize him
self. In a good action he succeeds for a moment,
as it were, in doing so. He expresses his whole self,
and stands forth as what he truly is. Here there
can be no talk of virtue being a mean. Such a defi
nition is good enough as telling us how this result

VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 97

looks from the side of the passions, through the
medium of which it is achieved ; or, again, how it
looks from the point of view of times and seasons
and human circumstances generally. It does not tell
us how it looks from the side of the man himself, i.e.
how it looks sub specie aeternitatis. From this side
it is not a mean. Here it is an extreme, for it is the
best that is in him — " the thing he was made for."

§ 5. Can there be a " Habit of choosing ? "

But we have hitherto avoided what the student of
psychology will probably feel to be the main difficulty
in Aristotle's doctrine of virtue. The basis of virtue
in Aristotle's view is, as we have seen, habit. Now
the aspect of habit which has received the most
attention is its unconsciousness and uniformity.
" Habit," says Professor Baldwin, " means loss of
oversight, diffusion of attention, subsiding conscious
ness ; " and, again, " Habit means invariableness, repeti
tion, reproduction." On the other hand, virtue is in
essence choice : it is, as Aristotle says, a habit of
choosing the mean, and therefore implies attributes
apparently the precise opposite of those which Pro
fessor Baldwin mentions, viz. oversight, concentrated
attention, rising consciousness. Moreover, as we have
just seen, it involves adaptation. The mean is relative
to the individual case. Morality, we might say, never
repeats itself. So far, therefore, from virtue or
perfection being a habit, we seem driven to say with
Fichte that " to form a habit is to fail." This is the

H

98 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

keynote of the view which was prominent in the
educational writers of last century, and received most
forcible expression in Rousseau's Emile, where the
doctrine is boldly stated that the only habit a child
should form is the habit of forming none.

The only way of meeting this difficulty, which
arises from an imperfect analysis of the psychological
conditions of habit, is to carry our analysis a step
further. In the first place, every habit, whether of
thought or action, certainly is, as Professor Baldwin
implies, a tendency or propensity to act in a particular
way in response to a stimulus. Habit is thus dis
tinguished from instinct in being acquired by the
individual himself through the repetition of certain
kinds of action. This tendency has two sides or
poles — a positive and a negative. On the one hand
it is a tendency to turn the flow of nervous energy
in a particular direction ; on the other hand, to
inhibit the flow in a contrary direction. Sometimes
one of these is prominent in the habit, sometimes
the other. We need not stop to illustrate so familiar
a point. We can all recognize in ourselves the
economy of nervous energy effected by habits of
regularity in our daily life ; from acting in a particular
manner the mind acquires an ease and spontaneity
of action comparable to the flow of a stream in the
bed it has once formed. The value of this (the
\ conservative element in habit), as the basis of progress,
although, as we have seen, it was in danger of being
overlooked by writers of last century, may now be
said to be a commonplace of educational literature.

VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE 'OF VIRTUE. 99

Without it, it would be impossible for the human
organism either to live or learn ; impossible to live
because impossible to learn.

But a habit is not merely a tendency to repetition.
There is a further element, which modern psychologists
have tended to ignore, but which Aristotle, with his
extraordinary concreteness of mind, has clearly grasped.
To^ neglect this element is to misunderstand his
whole doctrine. Habit also implies adaptation. The
whole value of the tendency to act in a particular
way consists in leaving the attention free for the
particular adaptation that is required. Thus, to
take a simple example, the value of the habit of
setting to work at a particular time in the day is
that our energies are no longer dissipated and our
attention distracted with the necessity to resist
counter attractions. The strong flow of nervous
energy in that particular direction has its counterpart
in the mind's imperviousness to contrary suggestions.
But this is only one side of the student's habit. If
this were all, his mental condition might be com
pared to a ship whose decks are cleared for action
which never comes off. The other side is the active
direction of the attention to the end to be attained,
viz. the work of this particular day. To identify habit,
therefore, with the mere repetition of actions already
performed is wholly to fail to grasp its place in con
crete human life.

Now, morality is only a highly developed case of
what we have described as habit in general, though
just on this account it is the better adapted to

100 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

illustrate the articulate structure of habit.* It must,
of course, in the first place be admitted that moral
action, in the proper sense of the word, is only possible'
on the basis of a tendency acquired by repeatedly
acting in a particular way under the influence of the
complex stimulus which we call a "situation." This
tendency, as we have seen, has two poles. On the
one hand it means the absence of temptation, dis
traction, friction, with the corresponding freedom to
act as the situation requires. On the other hand
it means the power thus acquired to meet the situa
tion in a particular way — the way, namely, which
Aristotle describes as aiming at the mean, and which
we have interpreted as that which satisfies completely
the requirements of the situation. But, in the second
place, morality only becomes real in the actual
meeting of character and occasion ; in other words,
in the proportionate or harmonious action. These
two elements of habit, so far from being opposed to
one another, are complementary sides of the same fact,
standing to each other as the potential to the real,
organ to function, body to soul. The formed tendency
is that which makes prompt and precise adaptation
possible ; the precise adaptation is that which gives
meaning and value to a tendency otherwise purely
mechanical and inhuman.

If we hold these two sides of habit clearly before
us, we shall have no difficulty in understanding what

* The mistake into which psychologists have here fallen is probably
largely due to the class of illustration — mainly of the " collar and stud "
type — to which they have confined themselves.

VI THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. IOI

Aristotle means by calling virtue a habit, and in
avoiding the opposite errors which consist in identify
ing it with knowledge (adaptation) without admixture
of habit, on the one hand, and with the habit of resist
ance to impulse without intelligent adaptation to the
circumstances or with a view to any positive achieve
ment, on the other.

The twofold aspect of habit above emphasized can
be strikingly illustrated from a field which is usually
taken as exhibiting free choice at its highest
level — I mean the field of tragedy. In such a case
as that of Antigone the choice is represented as one
between obedience to the unwritten and unfailing
laws of heaven, and submission to the arbitrary
decrees of Creon. But between these there is no
choice for Antigone. Her character, i.e. her normal
habit of willing, has bent her soul in one direction.
The suggestions of Ismene in the contrary direction
are to her meaningless. Her whole force is thus
available for the act itself, the adjustment of her
conduct to a situation which is new to the world—
the rival claims of king and conscience. The tragedy
consists here, as elsewhere, in the inevitableness of
the choice that springs from previous habits of action
and of thought. In this sense all the great tragedies
are the tragedies of habit.

NOTE. — The difficulty to which the above is an attempt to reply
seems inadequately met by the current accounts of habit. Thus
Professor Baldwin (Mental Development in the Child and the Race} is
so impressed with the element of identity in habit that he tends to
represent the element of difference and adaptation as a species of acci
dental variation. In this sense, to describe morality as a habit can only

102 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP. VI.

be an engaging paradox, and we have an odd echo of the above-quoted
axiom of Rousseau in the description of morality as " the habit of violating
habits" (Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development,^. 55).
This of course is only true in the sense that every moral habit involves
adaptation — but so does every other habit. Mr. Stout (Analytic
Psychology ', vol. i. p. 258 foil.), going further, draws a distinction between
the habits that consist of movements that have become mechanical
and automatic, and habits of thinking and willing. "Automatic
processes," he says, " may enter as component parts into a total
process which, as a whole, is very far from being automatic. The
inverse of this is seen in habits of thinking and willing. Here a
comprehensive habitual tendency realizes itself on special occasions
by means of special processes which are not habitual." It is not clear
from Mr. Stout's account whether he regards these as separate kinds of
habit, or only two elements which are present in varying proportions
in all habits. The above analysis is directed to show that the latter is
the true view.

103

CHAPTER VII.
COURAGE.

"And he is to be deemed courageous who, having the element of
passion working in him, preserves in the midst of pain and pleasure
the notion of danger which reason prescribes."

PLATO.

§ I. The Platonic and Aristotelian Conceptions of
Courage.

IN a well-known passage in the Republic, Socrates is
made by Plato to describe courage as a species of
holding fast, and when he is asked what species, to
reply: holding fast to the true opinion as to the
proper objects of fear and all other things. The
citizen-soldier into whose soul this opinion has been
dyed by law and education as a good colour is dyed
into a properly prepared fleece of wool, holds to it,
and keeps his head amid the temptations of pleasure,
" mightier solvent far than soap or soda," and pain and
fear and desire, "more potent washes than any lye."
In this passage Plato makes no distinction between
courage and temperance, and although afterwards he
proceeds to assign one to the soldiers, the other to the

104 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

industrial classes, as the virtues that enable them
severally to perform their function, he never loses
sight of their essential unity.

In marked contrast herein to Plato, Aristotle starts
from the point of view of the difference of these two
virtues, explaining that while the field of courage is
pain and fear, that of temperance is pleasure. This
of course is true enough, but we cannot help feeling
that with the advance of analysis we have lost an
element of insight, and that Plato is nearer the truth
when he represents both of them as having a common
root in the self-command that is begotten of right
principles worked into a ground of good natural
disposition by good laws and good schooling.

While they are thus contrasted, there are many
points which the Platonic and Aristotelian accounts
of courage have in common ; and that which strikes
the modern reader most forcibly is the narrowness
of the scope assigned to the virtue. In both of them
the type of true courage is taken to be the soldier
in the battle-field, and thus the emphasis is laid upon
what to us is a comparatively insignificant part of it.
This limitation of the virtue to the soldier type seems
to create a gulf between ancient and modern ideas on
this subject, and to obscure the application to modern
conditions of what is here said. Closer examination,
however, will, I think, show us that the difficulty is
created by the illustration rather than by the analysis.
For this reason it will be better, with a view to under
standing the real scope of Aristotle's conception, to
neglect meantime the illustration and confine ourselves

VII. COURAGE. 105

to the main features to which the analysis calls our
attention.

§ 2. Marks of True Courage.

[III. c. viii.]

Both Plato and Aristotle conceive of courage as
having its root in natural instinct. In a humorous
passage in the Repiiblic, Plato finds anticipations
of it in the noble dog which already begins to shows
signs of the philosopher in the curious mixture of
gentleness and courage displayed in relation to men.
We have already seen how Aristotle recognizes
courage as one of the virtues which normally form a
part of the natural endowment of a child. In harmony
with this, while pointing out that " courageous men are
actually men of quick passion," and that the truly
courageous man acts with passion for his ally,
Aristotle is careful to distinguish true courage in the
passage before us from the courage of mere animal
energy, "rushing on danger under the stimulus of
pain or passion, and without foresight of the grounds
of alarm."

What, then, must be added in order that the animal
instinct .may be transformed into an element of true
human courage ? We shall be led to the answer if
we recall what has already been said of the limitations
of qualities which are merely instinctive.*

(a) One of these was their unreliability. It is in the
light of this test of reliability that Aristotle bids us

* See chapter v.

106 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

class as a spurious form of courage that which springs
from mere sanguineness or confidence of success.
" The courage of the sanguine man is the result of
temporary feeling ; he is elated by a perhaps ground
less hope of victory. But the truly courageous man is
actuated by steady principle. His nature is such that
the law of duty is always before his eyes. Hence
you may take him on a sudden without discomposing
him. His courage will be ready on the shortest notice,
because it is himself, not a passing mood " (Stewart).

(b) Another defect of merely natural courage is
that it is apt to be present as an isolated element of
promise in a man's nature, and on the principle
corruptio optimi pessima may coexist with a general
habit of evil-doing which is all the more dangerous
to society for the combination. As Aristotle himself
hints in the passage quoted, courage of this kind serves
only to make mischief more mischievous, just as a
heavy body has a worse fall from its being heavy.*

(c) It is not sufficient that a man should respond
mechanically to the call of danger nor, again, that his
actions should be socially beneficial. The true signi
ficance of Aristotle's view comes out in connexion with
what he says of the state of the man's mind. We ,
have already seen how in the case of virtue in general
it is essential that a man should know what he is
about ; and, secondly, that he should act from a right
motive. These points Aristotle is careful to illustrate
from the case of courage. In the first place, true
courage is clearly distinguishable from the courage of

* See Browning's Halbert and Hob.

VII. COURAGE. IO7

ignorance — a point happily illustrated from an incident
in the siege of Corinth * (392 B.C.), where a party of
Lacedaemonian horse under their leader Pasimachus
covered the retreat of the Sicyonians by dismounting
and themselves taking their shields. In the belief
that the familiar S-marked bucklers covered the
inferior foe, the Argives boldly advanced to the attack,
the spuriousness of their courage, successful though it
was in the immediate onset, being proved by their
subsequent flight when they became aware of the
presence of the Lacedaemonians.

But, secondly, mere knowledge, even when combined
with perfect training, is not of itself enough. A
man may have the requisite knowledge and training,
and yet for that very reason fall short of true courage.
This point is brought out in the interesting and
apparently contradictory passage (c. viii. § 6), in which
Aristotle shows that a man may be steady in
alarms, retaining the head to grasp the situation and
use all his advantages to meet it, and yet after all
be a coward, the reason being that there is no true
citizen principle behind his act. Passing over the
obvious unfairness in identifying the Socratic doctrine
with the theory that experience necessarily gives
courage, we come, in this distinction between the pro
fessional and the citizen-soldier, to the crucial point
of the whole analysis, dividing once for all merely
instinctive and merely habitual from true human
courage. True courage must be for a noble object.
Here, as in all true excellence, action and object,

* Xenophon, History of Greece, iv. 4.

108 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

consequence and motive, are inseparable. Unless the
action is inspired by a noble motive, and permeated
throughout its whole structure by the quality of a
noble character, it has no claim to the name of
courage. It is this that is the basis of the series of
fine distinctions Aristotle draws in chaps, vii. § 13 and
viii. §§ 1-5, marking off true courage from that which is
merely mercenary (c. viii. § 6 foil.), from that which is
merely prudential (c. viii. § 4), from the courage of
despair, which is only a form of cowardice (c. vii. § 13),
and even from that form which bears the closest re
semblance to true courage, the courage of shame or
of ambition (c. viii. §§ 1-3).

,, How, we may ask, is this noble object to be
conceived ? The passage before us does not seem
to throw any direct light on this question. Indeed,
the~section (c. vi. § 6) in which it is most directly alluded
to seems rather to add a new element of difficulty by
suggesting that the courageous act must be done simply
because it is courageous, and that courage is valuable
for the sake of courage. If, however, we keep steadily
before us what has already been said of the unity of
the virtues on the one hand, and the unity of the noble
character and noble city life on the other, we shall have
no difficulty in avoiding this mistake. We shall
then notice, in the first place, that the emphasis is
here laid, not upon the isolated act of courage, but
upon the type of character which the courageous act
expresses (it is this and not the act that is the
" fine thing ") ; and in the second place, that neither
is this character an isolated phenomenon, but only

VII. COURAGE.

the inner side of the city life to which it ministers
and in which it finds its end.

§ 3. The Greek and Modern Ideals of Courage.

If with this analysis before us we now return to
the limitations which, as already said, strike the
modern reader in these sections, we shall have less
difficulty in understanding their source, and in seeing
that the difference between Aristotle's idea and our
own consists rather in a widening of the field in which
the virtue is exercised than in any fundamental diver
gence of principle. Starting with the said limitations,
we may state them as follows. In the first place,
physical pains, such as those of sickness, fatigue,
deprivation, even death, encountered in other fields
than war, in the meeting of which with a cheerful
heart so much of modern heroism consists, are either
ignored or expressly excluded.* As Green very well
says, " If a ' Christian worker ' who devotes himself,
unnoticed and unrewarded, at the risk of life and the
sacrifice of every pleasure but that of his work, to the
service of the sick, the ignorant, and the debased, were
told that his ideal of virtue was in principle the same
as that of the ai^pctoc, * the brave man,' described by
Aristotle, and if he were induced to read the description,
he would probably seem to himself to find nothing of
his ideal in it." f In the second place, the wide field
of what we are agreed to call " moral " heroism is

* See chap. vi. §§ 7, n, and 12.
t Prolegomena to Ethics^ p. 277.

110 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAI>.

left wholly untouched. Aristotle's conception of
courage, as of happiness, seems to presuppose the
existence of a favourable milieu. There is no mention,
for instance, of the courage which is based upon the
invigorating belief in the power of character over cir
cumstances, and which consists in pursuing some noble
purpose in the face of adverse influences, including
even hostile social opinion. Still less of that form of
courage which has risen into prominence in modern,
one might almost say recent times, and which consists .
in actively cherishing the belief in the ultimate
rationality of the world, all appearances to the contrary
notwithstanding — a belief which, as Professor James
insists, is among ourselves the source of all strenuous
living. To understand how these limitations spring
severally from the widening of our social and intel
lectual outlook we must recall some of the respects in
which this widening is most marked.*

(i) To the Greek philosopher the city-state was
the symbol of all that was excellent in life. Amongst
a homogeneous society of equals the sphere of dlity
was clearly defined. The end or function of justice or
virtue in general was the maintenance of the political
equilibrium. As the point at which this equilibrium
was most exposed to attack, and where danger was
most to be encountered in its service, was on the
side of its military independence, it was natural that
the particular virtue of courage should be conceived
of as chiefly exhibited in physical warfare. With us,
on the other hand, the conception of the city-state
* Cp. what is said in the Introduction.

VII. COURAGE. 1 1 1

as the embodiment of all that is most excellent in
life and the all-embracing end, has broadened into
that of the moral possibilities that are open to all.
Corresponding to this we have the extension of the
field of moral virtue in general, from the limited
liability of the Greek citizen for the maintenance of
a narrow political equilibrium, to the duty that rests
on each as a man to further by all the means that
lie in his power the cause of moral progress in the
world ; of courage in particular, to all the nameless
personal sacrifices that the individual is called upon
to make in forwarding the wider object. This does
not, of course, mean that courage in ceasing to be
merely civic has ceased to be social, but that we have
substituted for the conception of a homogeneous society
of equals, which found a visible symbol in the temple-
crowned cities of Hellas, that of a society, the
homogeneousness of which is to be looked for in a
will inspired by a common ideal of righteous living.

This last feature of the modern virtue suggests a
farther contrast. To the change in the scope of
the virtue we must add also a change in the motive,
amounting in reality to a purification of it. We
conceive of Aristotle's courageous man as acting in
full view of his fellow-citizens for an object whose
value and nobility were recognized by all whose
opinion was worth having. Given these encouraging
conditions, courage becomes comparatively easy. On
the other hand, as Green says, "The secondary
motives which assist self-devotion in war, or in the
performance of functions of recognized utility before

112 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

the eyes of fellow-citizens, are absent when neither
from the recipients of the service done nor from
any spectators of it, can any such praise be forth
coming as might confirm the agent in the con
sciousness of doing nobly." In yet another point
the modern virtue by reason of this change is more
" disinterested," in that while the personal share of
the Greek citizen in the life for which he fought could
not fail to be present to his mind in the moment of
danger, this modern type of heroism rests on faith in
a moral order which is believed in as only a distant
possibility for the race.

(2) In the light of this wider conception of the
" object " we can further understand the place which the
form of courage we call moral holds in our view. The
courage shown, say in the support of an unpopular cause,
has comparatively little place in the Greek conception.
The recognized elements in human life had attained
in the Greek type of civilization the maximum of
development as compared with other societies — with
the consequence that the established and the conven
tional stood in the eyes of even the best citizens for
the type of the natural and normal, in a way that
among us, with our more complex ideal of what
society might be, is no longer possible. It is true
that the Greek also had his ideal of courageous inde
pendence of popular opinion in such men as Phocion
and Aristides, and his faith in the identity of the
ideal and the actual had in later years been rudely
shaken by the condemnation of Socrates. Yet in many
of these cases there was a suggestion of personal

VII. COURAGE. 113

waywardness and eccentricity which detracted from
their moral value, and in view of the caricature of
the attitude of mind they represented, as exhibited in
the vagaries of the Cynic dissenters, even a philosopher
might be excused if he hesitated to rank independ
ence of thought and action, and the temper that makes
a man ready to face the personal loss it might involve,
as an element in ideal excellence.

The last of the above-mentioned points of difference
between ancient and modern conceptions of courage
is doubtless traceable to our own keener sense of the
sadness of things. Here also the greater simplicity
and harmony of the social conditions in the Greek
state is one of the chief factors to be taken into
account, tending, as it did, to obscure the deeper
problems of life. And if to this we add the com
parative lightness with which the wider problem of
the balance of good and evil in the world weighed
on the Greek mind, we shall have little difficulty in
understanding why the need of a courage, the essence
of which consists in upholding faith in a moral order
in obvious contrast to existing conditions of life, was
little felt. Under modern conditions, on the other

hand, it is more difficult to believe that

•

" God's in His Heaven,
All's right with the world ; "

and the man who holds unfalteringly to this faith
exhibits a type of courage which, if a new element
in moral excellence, is, we feel, a permanent addition
to our conception of what is implied in it. In an age

I

114 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

of shaken creeds and widespread intellectual hesitancy
the power of maintaining a belief in moral potenti
alities underlying apparent weakness and failure,
moral order underlying apparent confusion, may even
be of supreme value, and rightly take its place as
perhaps the cardinal virtue of our own time. Its
importance is emphasized by the prominence of the
opposite phase of thought in much modern literature,
and the need there is of an equally powerful note of
courage and serenity. From this point of view a new
light may be thrown upon the function of the poet
in our own time. We might almost say that a new
type of poet has been developed in the writers — and
they are the greatest — who sound this note : the
" Hero as Poet " whom Carlyle speaks of. Remaining
himself undismayed, he rallies his fellows around him,
and becomes a leader in courageous living. To take
an instance from recent biography, it is usual to think
of William Morris as combining an almost Hellenic
simplicity of character with a Hellenic cheerfulness
and serene enjoyment in the exercise of his marvellous
creative faculty. Yet his biographer calls attention
to another side of his character, in the profound
sense he has of the need of maintaining a belief in
human progress as the basis of human effort.*

* Speaking half for the old Northmen and more than half for himself,
Morris says : " It may be that the world shall be weary of itself and
sicken, and none but faint hearts be left — who knows ? So, at any
rate, comes the end at last, so comes the great strife ; and, like the
kings and heroes that they have loved, here also must the gods die— the
gods who made that strifeful, imperfect earth — not blindly indeed, but
fore-doomed. One by one they extinguish for ever some dread or

Vl1- COURAGE. 1 1 5

Morris, however, had so many of the conditions
essential to happiness in the Aristotelian sense that
a comparatively slight adjustment of the Greek view
of life is required to recognize him as the type of the
"happy man." A more characteristic modern instance,
appealing to us with perhaps greater force, is to be
found in Robert Louis Stevenson, a creative artist,
rejoicing in the life on which he physically had so
slender a hold, resolutely triumphing by force of
character over unfavourable circumstances. He also,
like Morris, had a misgiving that " Odin was dead."
But he also, like him, met it with the belief that all
was not lost nor losable. " I would believe in the
ultimate decency of things, even though I woke in
Hell," is one among other brave sayings in which we
realize, together with " the substantial identity " which
Green notes between ancient and modern concep
tions of courage, the immense advance in depth and
spirituality which the latter has made.*

misery that all this time has brooded over life, and one by one, their
work accomplished, they die ; till at last the great destruction breaks
out over all things, and the old heaven and earth are gone, and then
a new heaven and earth. What goes on there? Who shall say of
us who know only of rest and peace by toil and strife ? And what
shall be our share in it ? Well, sometimes we must needs think that
we shall live again ; yet, if that were not, would it not be enough that
we helped to make this unnameable glory, and lived not altogether
deedless ? Think of the joy we have in praising great men, and how
we turn their stories over and over, and fashion their lives for our joy.
And this also we ourselves may give to the world. This seems to me
pretty much the religion of the Northmen. I think one would be a
happy man if one could hold it, in spite of the wild dreams and dreadful
imaginings that hung about it here and there." — Life of William
Morris, by J. W. Mackail, vol. i. p. 333 (condensed).
* See, for example, the passage quoted, Note E.

Il6 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

CHAPTER VIII.
TEMPERANCE.

" Next consider Temperance ; this, as far as I can see at present, has
more of the nature of symphony and harmony than the preceding."

PLATO.

§ I. Features in Aristotle s Conception of Temperance.

[III. cc. x. foil.]

IN the account here given of the virtue of Temperance
there is much with which the modern student finds
himself in sympathy. He will be struck, for instance,
with the sobriety of the statement and the absence
of any false note of asceticism. Of the particular
pleasures, indeed, in respect to which temperance is
said to be the mean, Aristotle seems, as we shall
see, to be curiously suspicious, but with pleasure in
general he has no quarrel. He tells us that it is
part of his ideal of the temperate man not only to
take the ordinary pleasures of life as they come, but
to desire to have them (c. xi. § 8). The reader will
further be struck with the disinterestedness of this
virtue as conceived by Aristotle. There is no false
attempt to " rationalize " it, as a modern utilitarian
might do by emphasizing the consequences to

VIII. TEMPERANCE. I 1 7

individual health and happiness of its neglect. As
Plato had declared that the man who is temperate for
such a reason overcomes only because he is overcome
by pleasure, and is " temperate through intemper
ance," * so Aristotle would have refused to recognize
any such merely prudential temperance as a form of
" excellence." He is quite aware of the effect of in
temperance upon " health and good condition," but it
is clearly the injury done through this loss to his
efficiency as a citizen, and not to individual happiness,
that is in his mincl. So far is he from conceiving of
temperance as a form of prudence that he lays no
emphasis on its "consequences" at all, but treats it
throughout simply as an element in the " ideal excel
lence " which it is the " aim " of the good man to
realize as completely as possible. In these respects
there is no difference between the Aristotelian and the
modern philosophical conception of temperance. To
Aristotle, as to us, the principle which underlies the
exercise of self-restraint in the presence of the allure
ments of pleasure is the acceptance of a higher ideal
of life than that of merely individual satisfaction.

§ 2. Limitations of Ancient Conceptions of Temperance.

It is when we come to the limits which Aristotle
here sets to the field of the virtue that dissatisfaction
begins. If the treatment of courage is felt to be
inadequate, that of temperance falls still further short
of modern requirements. Not only is the field of its
* Phaedo, 68 E,

IlS CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

exercise limited to the pleasures of the body, but among
them it is limited to taste and touch. Even the
former of these senses is finally excluded, and the
virtue apparently confined to a very moderate degree
of self-restraint in the presence of the allurements of
the grosser sense. "The first impression of any one
who came to this account having his mind charged
with the highest lessons of Christian self-denial would
be of its great poverty — a poverty the more striking,
as it will probably appear, in the case of ' temperance '
than in the case of ' courage.' He finds * temperance '
restricted by Aristotle to control over the mere animal
appetites, or, more exactly, to control over desire for
the pleasures incidental to the satisfaction of these
appetites. The particular usage of a name, indeed,
is of slight importance. If Aristotle had reasons for
limiting temperance to a certain meaning, and made
up elsewhere for what is lacking in his account of the
virtue described under the name, no fault could be
found. But temperance and courage between them
have to do duty for the whole of what we understand
by self-denial." * It is true that there is a sense in
which, according to Aristotle, all virtue is self-control
or self-denial, inasmuch as it is the habit of aiming
at a mean which unregulated impulse and passion
tend to overpass. This points to a sense in which
temperance might be said to be co-extensive with
all virtue, but it does not make up for the deficiencies
of the particular virtue. "However little," Green

* Green, Proleg. bk. iii. ch. v. p. 281 foil. The comparison in the
succeeding sections follows closely Green's classical treatment.

VIII. TEMPERANCE. IIQ

concludes, " we may have cleared up the moral demand
which we express to ourselves as the duty of self-
denial, we cannot get rid of the conviction that it is
a demand, at any rate, of much wider significance in
regard to indulgence in pleasures than that which
Aristotle describes as actuating the temperate man ;
nor do we find the deficiency made good in any account
which he gives of other forms of virtue."

In two respects especially does the ancient ideal
seem to fall short of ours. In the first place, Aris
totle expressly excludes the higher bodily pleasures
of sight and sound, and the pleasures of the soul, or,
as we might say, intellectual and aesthetic pleasure.
Yet, as Green points out, " it is just such pleasures
as these of which the renunciation is involved in that
self-denial which in our impartial and unsophisticated
judgment we most admire— that which in our con
sciences we set before ourselves as the highest ideal.
It would seem no great thing to us that in the service
of mankind one should confine himself to necessary
food and drink, and should observe the strictest limi
tations of Christian morality in the matter of sexual
indulgence— and it is such indulgence alone, we must
remember, not the enjoyments of family life, that
would fall within the class of pleasures in which,
according to the Greek philosophers, temperance is
exercised. We have examples of much severer
sacrifice. There are men, we know, who, with the
keenest sensibility to such pleasures as those of
' gratified ambition and love of learning,' yet delib
erately forego them ; who shut themselves out from

120 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

an abundance of aesthetic enjoyments which would
be open to them, as well as from those of family
life." ' In the second place, and permitting ourselves
to go beyond the text before us, we know that in
respect to the pleasures which he does mention, the
ancient standard is far less exacting than ours. Thus,
in regard to " meats and drinks," it has often been
noticed how strangely insensitive even the best of
the Greeks were to excesses of which the average
good citizen would now be ashamed. Among some
of his followers not the least remarkable feature in
the self-command of their saint and hero Socrates, was
his power of keeping his head in a drinking bout.
And in regard to the more serious forms of the
corresponding vice which the modern " incontinence "
specifically denotes, Green has observed that "the
limit which the philosophers would have drawn
between lawful and lawless love would not have been
that which our consciences would call on us to
observe." Fully to understand the ground of this
difference between ancient and modern conceptions,
we must ask in the first place what it is in the
pleasures of taste and touch which leads ancient
philosophy to assign the duty of regulating them to
a special virtue ; and, secondly, what it is in modern
times that has led to so great an extension of the
field of self-denial.

* Green, Proleg. bk. iii. ch. v. p. 29.

VIII. TEMPERANCE. 1 2 1

§ 3. Greek Attitude to Pleasures of the Body.

In reference to the former question, it has to be
observed that the reason assigned in c. x. §§ 7 and 8,
can hardly be the true one. It is of course true that
there is a deeper, or, as Aristotle would say, a more
natural ground for condemning the glutton and the
drunkard than any merely utilitarian estimate of the
consequences to health and happiness. Our moral
judgments here witness to the fundamental distinction
between the lower and the higher life. Yet, as Green
points out, it is a false philosophical gloss on these
judgments to attribute them to the fact that indul
gences of this kind " are shared by the lower animals,"
whereas the higher pleasures are distinctly human.
We may very well ask whether it is so certain, as
§ 7 seems to assume, that the lower animals are
incapable of deriving disinterested pleasure from
sights and sounds, not to speak of pleasures still
more obviously "of the soul," such as friendship or
the performance of duty. Even their pleasures of
smell are so obviously different, as Professor Stewart
remarks, from any with which our less developed
senses make us acquainted, that it would be rash to
say that they are merely the result of association with
the grosser senses. But, passing over this, it is further
questionable whether the brutes ever do indulge in
these lower pleasures in such a way as to incapaci
tate themselves for the performance of the functions
appropriate to their nature. What makes it possible
for man to go to excess in these pleasures seems rather

122 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

to be what distinguishes him from the lower animals
than the appetites he has in common with them — the
power of imaginatively clothing them with attractions
other than those derived from the mere satisfaction
of the appetite, and thus of making them an object
of specific desire. As Green puts it, " It is probably
never the pleasure of drinking, strictly so called, that
leads a man to get drunk. The mere pleasure of
eating, apart from the gratification of vanity and
indefinable social enjoyments, have but a slight
share in promoting the ' excesses of the table.' The
temptations to sexual immorality would be far less
formidable if the attractive pleasure consisted merely
in the satisfaction of sexual appetite." The light
that leads him astray is " Light from Heaven," and
even his intemperance may be said to bear witness
to his capacity for a higher life.

We must look for the true ground of the Greek
sentiment with regard to these pleasures in what is
said of them lower down in c. xii. § 7, where it is
the danger of disturbance by them of the rational
order or system of life which is the point emphasized.
This danger is increased by the peculiar insidiousness
of these pleasures, indulgence in them fostering
" innate tendency," " until perhaps waxing powerful
and violent, the desires cast out reason altogether."
It is in the light of passages such as these that we
must read the suggestions in II. c. ix. § 4 (p. 246)
of the advisability of giving a wide berth to pleasures
of this kind, and even of renouncing them altogether.

In marked contrast to the suspicion of "the

VIII. TEMPERANCE. 123

pleasures of the body," shown in these passages as
in a peculiar degree threatening the equilibrium of
human life as conceived by the Greeks, we have the
large belief here manifested in the pleasures of the
higher senses, especially those of sight and hearing,
as a substantial addition to human happiness.* If
it were pointed out that these also might be carried
to excess, Aristotle was prepared to admit it in the
abstract (see c. x. § 3) ; but he has no vivid sense of
any social circumstances under which it might be
come a part of the rational life, and so a press
ing obligation on the part of individuals to set
vigilant limits to indulgence in them, or even renounce
them altogether. If we ask what it is in our own
time that has led to the extension of the duty of self-
denial to these pleasures and at the same time to the
ideal of a still more complete control of the bodily
appetites, we come to the second of the above questions.

§ 4. Deepening in Modern Conceptions of the

Scope of Temperance.

The answer is to be looked for in our extended
conception of the noble object or " beautiful thing,"
which gives meaning to the virtue of temperance.
In two closely related respects we may say that
our modern conceptions are in advance of the Greek.
(a) To the Greek, the " end " of temperance, as of

* This is connected with the distinction running through both Plato
and Aristotle between things pleasant and desirable in themselves
because they call forth harmonious activity of the soul independently of
previous want, and things that are only accidentally pleasant as satisfy
ing a want of the body. (See chapter xiii. p. 195, below.)

124 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

the other virtues, was the maintenance of a high
level of civilization among a comparatively small
group of cultured equals— supported by the labour
and ministered to by the moral degradation of the
great mass of the population. To us it is no less
than the development in all who are capable of it
—and all who bear the human shape are capable* of ,
it in some degree — of the elements of our common '
humanity. For the maxim : See that you treat free
citizenship in your own person, and in the person oP
others, always as an end, and never as a means only,
we have accepted, in principle at any rate, the maxim
of Kant : See that you so treat Humanity. With this
enlarged ideal of the end which is to be served goes
an enlarged conception of the sacrifices which may be
entailed by the service. From the Greek all that
seemed to be required was such self-denial as was v
implied in abstaining from all excesses that would
unfit a man for the performance of his civil or military
duties. Under modern conditions individuals and
classes may find themselves, in addition to this
minimum, called upon, for the sake of objects which ,
to the Greek would have seemed wholly impalpable N
and illusory, to accept a life in which the pleasures of' '
the senses or even of the mind have little or no place.
If it be said that, admitting all this, the Greek ideal '
of a society in which the higher pleasures will consti
tute an element in life which no one will be called
upon to renounce, is nevertheless the higher of the
two, the answer is twofold. In the first place, this
ideal is not likely to be realized unless there are,

VIII. TEMPERANCE. 125

meantime, some who value more the opening of
them to others than the personal enjoyment of them.
In the second place, so far as the individual is con
cerned, there is no evidence that with the advance
of civilization there will be less need for temperance
and self-denial. On the contrary, it may very well
^be that just as the advance of civilization brings, as
we have seen, new pains and fears, and with them
new occasions for courage, so it brings with it new
-pleasures which the man who desires to live for larger
aims has to do without.

(b) Following on this enlarged conception of the
" end " has gone a more vivid sense of its spirituality.
The beautiful object is not confined to the favoured
members of any race or city, but consists in the
development of the qualities of mind and character
that are characteristic of man. Indulgences, therefore,
whose relation to this human ideal was obscured by
the narrowness with which it was conceived, are now
seen to be incompatible with it. Loyalty to the
wider ideal implies a more exacting standard in the
individual's own life. Temperance not only has a
broader basis : it moves on a higher plane. So far is
it from being true, as has been sometimes suggested
by ardent reformers, that the recognition of the wider
claim of human brotherhood absolves from the
obligation to maintain a strict standard of temperance
in respect to the pleasures of the body, that it is
precisely the ground upon which we have a right to
expect a stricter discipline of thought and act than
has hitherto been generally acknowledged.

126 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

CHAPTER IX.

IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL.

" The great Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge is an aspect of
the truth which was lost almost as it was formed ; and yet has to be
recovered by every one for himself who would pass the limits of proverbial
and popular philosophy. It is not to be regarded only as a passing
stage in the history of the human mind, but as our anticipation of the
reconcilement of the moral and intellectual elements of human nature."

JOWETT.

§ i. Continence and Temperance.

[VII. cc. i. foil.]

The account of Temperance in Book III. is only part
of the larger treatment of the habit of Self-control.
The subject is resumed in Book VII., where the
imperfect form of the virtue of Temperance known as
Continence comes in for fuller discussion. While
from the side of the growth of ethical ideas the
former analysis is the more interesting, from the side
of psychology and education the latter is undoubtedly
the more important. Continence and incontinence
differ from temperance and intemperance respectively
—in the first place in falling short of the complete
virtue and the settled vice ; and, secondly, in being
taken, contrary to the English usage, rather as the

IX. IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL. I2/

element of self-control that enters into all virtue,
than as confined to the pleasures of the lower bodily
appetites : the writer * recognizing an incontinence
" with respect to money, gain, or honour, or anger," as
well as with respect to " nutrition, the propagation of
the species, and other bodily appetities." Starting
from the common idea that continence consists in
knowing that a desire is wrong and at the bidding of
reason refusing to indulge it — incontinence in doing at
the bidding of passion what one knows to be wrong,!
we are at once face to face with the question, How is
incontinence possible ?

§ 2. The Socratic Doctrine of Continence.

The way in which the great Greek philosophers
dealt with this question is an interesting example
of progressive analysis. The general form of the
answer which Socrates gave is well-known. " Wisdom
and temperance," says Xenophon, " he did not define ;
but the man who, knowing what is noble and good,
does it, and, again, knowing what is base, avoids it, he
called wise and temperate. And when asked if he
considered those who know what is right but do
what is wrong, wise and continent, he replied, 'On
the contrary, I consider them foolish and incontinent,
for I hold that of possible courses of action all men
choose that which they think is best for them. I
therefore consider those who act wrongly neither

* Perhaps Eudemus. I have disregarded the distinction between
master and disciple in what follows.
t VII. c. i. § 6.

128 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

wise nor temperate.' And he held that justice an^
all other virtue was wisdom, for just actions and all
other forms of excellence are noble and good, and no
one who knew what these were would choose any
thing else in preference ; nor, again, is it possible for
those who do not know to do them ; if they try they
fail. . . . Since, then, just actions and all else that is
noble and good, are forms of excellence, it is clear
that justice and virtue in general consists in wisdom." *
In this statement we have the first recognition and
application of a truth which the progress of psychology
has established with growing emphasis, viz. that the
will is controlled by ideas, and is in fact nothing
more than our ideas in operation. To have perceived
that in proportion to the strength with which an idea
takes possession of the mind is the energy of the
will in realizing it, and to have applied it to morals
with the view of showing that once the idea of what
is truly good has taken hold of us and become the
centre of organization for other ideas, in other words
once it is truly grasped or " known," it must bear
down the opposition of ideas of partial good that are
suggested by the appetites — was a great step in ethical
analysis. While this important truth is foreshadowed
in the Socratic doctrine that Virtue is Knowledge,
Socrates seems to have had nothing to say on the
causes of the strength of ideas and accordingly on the
various degrees of their effectiveness. It is not, there
fore, surprising that he failed to see the limits within
which his doctrine held, and that he was obliged to

* Memorabilia^ iii. 9.

IX- IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL. 1 29

leave it with an air of paradox clinging to it that it
has never lost.

Two paradoxes especially seemed to follow directly
from it— first, that there can be no goodness which
does not spring from knowledge, i.e. from the clear
apprehension of what is individually and socially
best ; and second, that, given this knowledge, it is
impossible to act wrongly.* These paradoxes do not
seem to have troubled Socrates much himself, who, as
Xenophon tells us,f did not shrink from carrying his
doctrine to its extreme consequences, and maintaining
that it was better to do an unjust action voluntarily
than a just one involuntarily. But it was clear to
those who succeeded him that the doctrine could not
be left in the form in which Socrates had left it, and
that if its substantial truth was to be maintained, a
more careful account must be given of what we mean
by knowledge and ignorance.

§ 3. Plato s Doctrine.

It was here that the advancing analysis of the Platonic
philosophy took up the problem. Plato drew a two
fold distinction, thereby giving the clue to its solution.
He distinguished, in the first place, between merely
possessing knowledge and having it in an available;
form— as we might say, "realizing " it. In the famous
passage in the TJieatetusy\ where he compares the

* See Ethics, VII. c. ii. § I : " Socrates indeed contested the whole
position, maintaining that there is no such thing as incontinence."
t Mem. iv. 2 ; cf. Plato's Dialogue : The Lesser Hippias.
t Pp. 197, 198.

K

130 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

mind to an aviary in which birds may be without
being in hand, we have the recognition of the two
fold manner in which an idea may be present, viz.
either on the margin or in the focus of consciousness.
Only that is truly known as an operative principle
which is caught and fixed as the centre of attention.
In the second place, he distinguished between mere
opinion and "true opinion with definite or rational
explanation added." * The former has no claim to
real knowledge, being mere isolated aperqu, or
resting on a basis of hearsay or tradition. Only
when an idea is adopted into the organized system
of experience, and thus rests for its reason on the
nature of the mind as the organ of consistent thought,
can it be said in any proper sense to be known.
Combining these suggestions, we may thus be
said to have before us three stages or phases of
knowledge— first, the stage at which an idea is in
the mind, but inoperative ; second, that in which it
is present to consciousness, and operative as an
established fact or opinion ; third, that in which its
place is secured and its operation guaranteed by its
organic connexion with the habitual content of the
mind.

Applied to the field of practice, this distinction
made it plain in what sense the Socratic paradox was
to be understood. A practical idea, like any other,
may be " known " in any one of these three senses :
as a mere suggestion ; as an established opinion
recurring at the proper moment with force sufficient

* The&tetus, 208; cf. Rep. 477, w& passim.

IX. IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL. 131

to carry the day against other suggestions ; as a
reasoned conviction, with which, as a part of the
organized system which we call our will or ourselves,
we can no more part than with personality itself.
Education in the Platonic sense means the mind's
progress from the lower of these modes of knowledge
to the higher. When it is completed the result is
such a grasp of the central principle of the Good in
life, and such a belief in its reality, that by the side
of it the suggestions of impulse and passion shall
seem but the merest delusion. Virtue is knowledge
in the sense that really to know and believe
a thing to be right is to have accepted it as a
necessary element in the organized life which we call
our "good." So to have accepted it is equivalent
to doing it, for it is to have made it a part of our
will or self. On the other hand, vice is ignorance
in the sense that just in so far as passion has been
taken as a guide, the dominant purpose of a man's
life has dropped out of view — has, in fact, ceased
to be known.

The application of these distinctions to the problem
of continence as discussed by Socrates in the earlier
Platonic dialogues, such as the Protagoras, seems
obvious ; but in his later speculations Plato was
occupied with the larger questions of education and
government, and used the new light to show in what
sense the citizens might be virtuous without being
philosophers, rather than in what sense they may
be vicious without being ignorant. Even in dealing
with the former problem, moreover, he left his

132 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

doctrine in some obscurity, owing to the failure^
clearly to distinguish between philosophy and
prudence or practical insight. And although this
very failure enabled him to give all the more striking
expression to the ultimate identity between know
ledge and conduct, it gave his teaching an air of
unreality, which reached its height in the famous
paradox of the philosopher king.

§ 4. Aristotle s Contribution.

J i

By carrying the analysis a step further, Aristotle
succeeds not only in putting the unity of knowledge
and virtue still further beyond question, but in stating
it in a form that commends itself to common sense
and is consistent with experience. It is true that
he begins (c. ii. § 2 ; c. iii. § 4) by separating himself
from his predecessors, setting aside the Socratic doctrine
on the ground that " it evidently conflicts with experi
ence," and criticizing the Platonic distinction between
knowledge and opinion as irrelevant. But the
difference is superficial, and as the analysis proceeds
the real identity of principle becomes more and more
obvious, until he is fain to admit that after all
"what Socrates sought to establish really is the
case ; for when passion carries a man away, what
is present to his mind is not what is regarded as
knowledge in the strict sense, nor is it such know
ledge that is perverted by his passion" (c. iii. §§ 13
and 14).

Besides recognizing the fundamental distinction

IX. IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL. 133

between philosophy and practical wisdom, Aristotle
further contributes a logical analysis of the practical
'udgment that underlies all voluntary action. Two
elements are here distinguishable, corresponding to
the major and minor premises of a syllogism, (i)
There is the general principle or maxim, e.g. "what
is harmful must be avoided ; " (2) there is the
" particular " (and Aristotle never allows us to forget
that " conduct is concerned with particulars"), "this
is harmful." In the light of this distinction combined
with those already drawn, we obtain a closer view of
the mental state of the man who is said to know
what is right and do what is wrong. From the side
of the content we see that the knowledge in question
•consists, like other knowledge, in a particular sub
sumed under a universal, and issuing in a judgment
or conclusion. But these universals are, from the very
nature of the case, of different kinds ; especially our
attention is called to the fundamental difference
between what is pleasant (and therefore desirable)
and what is right, as that which concerns us in the
present discussion. The case of the incontinent man
is the case in which the universal " it is pleasant "
enters into effective competition with the imperfectly
established universal "it is right." The latter, how
ever, while never altogether absent from the mind,
may be present with different degrees of effectiveness.
(i) It may be wholly in the background, and merely
produce a vague feeling of discomfort. A man has it,
but he does 'not use it (c. iii. § 5). (2) It may be
present as an actual suggestion, like the words a

134 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE' S ETHICS. CHAP.

man repeats when he is drunk or asleep. He has the
knowledge, but he does not realize it (c. x. § 3 ; cf.
iii. §§ 7 and 13). If we ask, finally, what it is that
gives the wrong principle the advantage, we have to
look for it in the reinforcement which the minor " this
is pleasant" receives from unregulated appetite (c.
iii. § 10). In this connexion there is fine insight in
the remark that a main factor here is the muscular
accompaniments of appetite. These alone when
unchecked are sufficient to give the victory to the
delusions of sense.

In these sections we are thus brought back to the
point from which we started.* Courage and temper
ance result from the hold which practice gives of a
true opinion as to the proper objects of fear and
desire ; in other words, as to the true value of things-
The education of the courageous and temperate man
has been such as to secure that in the moment of
fear or desire the right view of life will remain in
undisturbed possession dominating the delusions of
sense, and rendering the will proof against the
seductions of pain and pleasure. But the Platonic
distinction between the different senses in which a
man may be said to know has brought into prominence
a further point. So long as the ideas that dominate
the temperate and courageous man are merely opinions,
they can never obtain the hold on the will that gives,
it full security against passion. So long they remain,
after all, outside the man, and fail to obtain the

* Chapter vii. p. 103.

IX. IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL. 135

complete allegiance of his mind and will. That they
may become a part of the man himself, they must
be transformed from mere opinion into true knowledge,
" by the addition of rational explanation." In other
words, to invest them with full efficiency, the judg
ments of good and bad involved in habitual morality
must be made clearly explicit, and we must know
not only what it is right to do, but why it is right
to do it. In maintaining that, in order to be completed
virtue must be penetrated by conscious intelligencei
or "knowledge of the end," Aristotle merely re-/
produces this doctrine. How he works it out in
detail we shall see more fully hereafter.

Meantime, it is sufficient to have realized the edu
cational value of the theory common to Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle, that Virtue is Knowledge. Moral
education aims at something more than conformity,
However habitual and spontaneous, to moral require
ments, viz. at investing the idea of a certain type of
character, and the forms of social organization — family,
school, city, business, etc.— which are its counterpart,
with such power over the mind as shall make it
proof against the inroad of other ideas which, however
flattering to our sensuous nature, are incompatible
with these wider objects.

136 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

CHAPTER X.

THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE.

" If you see well, you're king of what you see :
Eyesight is having."

"There's a truth of settled laws,
That down the past looms like a great watch-fire."

§ I. The Intellectual Virtues.

Prima facie, Book VI. is an enumeration of intellectual
virtues, wisdom and prudence being only two out of
many. Closer inspection, however, shows that all the)
others in reality group themselves round these twc/J
and more particularly that the qualities described in
chaps, ix.-xii. — good counsel, intelligence, good sense,
cleverness— are rather to be taken as elements in the
supreme virtue of prudence than independent forms of
excellence. Wisdom and prudence — the Greek o-o^m
and <£povrj(Tfc — are not therefore two among other
forms, but the two types, of intellectual virtue. The
difficulty which besets the translator of these words is
that of finding terms which will distinguish between
them, and at the same time indicate the relation in
which they stand to each other as only higher and
lower forms of the same excellence. Assuming this
ultimate relation, we may express their essential

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 137

unity by the English word "wisdom." Raised to its
highest power, " wisdom " implies that attitude to life
which results from the clear apprehension of those
ultimate principles of reality which Plato called the
Good. At a lower level it indicates practical sagacity
in the conduct of affairs, whether those of the individual
or the community. To mark, however, the distinction
between these two levels, words are necessary which
shall suggest respectively the intellectual and the
practical side of wisdom, as so defined. No single
English words are adequate to express the required
shades of meaning. The nearest approach to the
lower virtue is probably given by the traditional
translation — " Prudence," in the sense of that practical
control over the affairs of life which comes of moral
insight. It is more difficult to find an equivalent for
the higher. Perhaps the " Divine Wisdom " of the
mediaeval mystics would best give the sense. If we
adopt the more usual translation, " Wisdom," we must
understand that the emphasis falls upon the con
templative or philosophical attitude of mind which is
the condition of the higher forms of intellectual insight,
and with them of happiness.

In accordance with the above definitions we have
now to ask— first, how are we to conceive of the
distinction between these two " virtues " ? secondly,
confining ourselves meantime to typovrimz, or prudence,
how is it related to what we have hitherto described
as moral virtue ? thirdly, what preliminary conclu
sions can we draw as to the relation of the higher
virtue of wisdom to the lower ?

138 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.
§ 2. The Distinction between Prudence and Wisdom.

[VI. c. i. §§ 4 foil. ; vii. §§ i foil.]

In the endeavour clearly to differentiate between
prudence and wisdom, Aristotle appeals to a psycho
logical distinction between the scientific and the cal-
culative reason (c. i. §§ 4 and 5), which immediately
merges in a philosophical distinction between the
objects with which they respectively deal. Two
features are emphasized as distinctive of the kind of
reality which is the object of the calculative reason :
(i) it is " contingent," whereas science and philosophy
are concerned with "those elements of reality which
depend upon unalterable principles " (c. i. § 5) ; (2)
it is multiform (c. viii. § 4), while the objects of the
scientific reason are " of the same kind wherever they
are found." These distinctions, however, must not
be taken too seriously. Pressed to their logical
issue, they not only obscure the ultimate unity of the
elements of happiness we are here discussing, but
render any intelligible account of them impossible.

Taking the first of them, it is quite true that the
function of prudence or calculation is to adapt means
to end, and that means are apt to present themselves
to us under the form of alternative possibilities, i.e.
contingencies. Yet the forces which we set in opera-i
tion in seeking to realize an " end," whether they be\
physical causes or human wills, act according to laws
as eternally fixed and unalterable as the stars in their/
courses, and, if we only knew enough, could be calcu
lated as exactly. Similarly, from the side of the end

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 139

or good, it is quite true that the phenomena of life
are more complex than those of form or colour, and
that, as the history of science has shown, it is more
difficult to grasp the idea of the end or function of
living beings expressed in such formulae as survival,
adaptation to environment, or the like, than a mathe
matical definition or a physical analysis. But modern j
biology leaves us in no doubt that such a definition!
is possible. Turning to the question of human good,
the whole science of Ethics itself proceeds upon the
assumption that whatever the apparent diversity of
individual goods, they all find their unity in the con
ception of man as a being whose end consists in
the fulfilment of his function as a member of a civilized
community. Plato was here nearer the mark in in-j
sisting on the fundamental identity of the good in all\
its forms. Nor does Aristotle himself, when in closer
touch with the inner spirit of his own philosophy, differ
from him. In the present connexion we cannot help
feeling that it would have saved him some embarrass
ment in the statement of the relation between wisdom
and prudence if he had realized more clearly the
illusoriness of the above distinctions, and thus left
himself free to acknowledge that the practical good
of man as itself one of " the elements of reality that
depend upon unalterable principles," and indeed the
highest of them, has no less a claim than the forms,
colours, and motions of bodies to be made the object
of philosophical thought (o-o^m).

We are left, therefore, with a distinction based not
on any inherent difference between the degree of

140 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

unity and reality to be assigned. to the objects of the
scientific and calculative reason, but rather on the
scope of their respective exercise and the aim they
have in view. While the " object " of philosophy is
" all time and all reality," the object of prudence is
primarily that particular form of reality which we
call the practical good of man. Secondly, while the
aim of philosophy is primarily to understand the
nature of this good and its relation to other forms
of reality, e.g. truth and beauty, the aim of prudence
is to realize it in practice. While, however, they are
thus distinguished, we must not forget that they]
stand in organic connexion with each other, inas
much as principle and practice, theory and conduct/
can never be wholly separated. Fully to realize the
meaning of life is an essential condition of complete
practical success in it. On the other hand, the true
meaning of life — the " unalterable principles " which
underlie it — only becomes luminous and convincing in
an atmosphere of moral practice. Seeing that the
whole of the sixth book aims, as we shall see, at
making this fundamental unity of the intellectual
virtues clear, it is the more curious that Aristotle
should have started in this analysis with a distinction
that seems at variance with it.

§ 3. The Intellectual Elements in Moral Virtue.

[VI. cc. ix.-xi.]

The discussion of the relation between Prudence
and Moral Virtue falls into two parts, the first of

4

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES I PRUDENCE. 141

which (cc. ix.-xi.) is really an analysis of the
intellectual element in morality, the second (cc.
xii. and xiii.) approaches the subject more directly
by inquiring what is the use of Prudence, carrying us
to a more careful statement of the relation between
intellectual ability and moral excellence. Taking the
former first, we have here an enumeration of the chief
qualities which "tend to centre in the same type of
character." ^^

(a) The first of these is good counsel. That good
counsel is a necessary element in all good conduct
follows from what has already been said of conduct
as concerned with means and end, and still more
definitely from the analysis of the judgment or
" syllogism " involved in all volition with which the last
chapter made us familiar. The precise connexion
between the two conceptions (end of action and
syllogistic conclusion) is not at first obvious to us.
It will become clearer if we recollect that in
Aristotle's view the accomplishment of an end
involves a train of reasoning the conclusion of which,
i.e. the last step in the argument, gives us our means
or the first step in action, and similarly the first step
in logic, represented by the end to be accomplished in
human life, is the last step in practice, viz. the realiza
tion of -the end. As right reasoning, then, implies a
true conclusion from true premises, so good conduct
implies good counsel as to means and end alike. As
the reasoning may be wrong, either on account of the
falsity of the major premise which gives the universal
principle, or of the minor and the conclusion which

142 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

follows on it, so counsel may fail, either because thei
end is wrong or the means are mistaken. In the|
former case we have the man who is cunning but1
vicious ; in the latter, the man who is well-meaning
but stupid.* Finally, as all human ends are accom
plished in time, we must add as a final condition
under this head the intellectual agility which enables
a man to perceive the right means within the period
that the circumstances permit him for deliberation.

(b) Another of the qualities which " tend to centre
in the same character" is intelligence, or good
intelligence. In its ordinary use the Greek word
means the faculty of understanding and appreciating'
the good suggestion of another. The intelligent man
(<ruvcroe) is a "good judge of an argument." This
differentiates it from Prudence, or Morality in the
highest sense, which, as Aristotle points out, is
originative, initiating "policies and schemes of con
duct," f never repeating itself or taking the word
of another for what ought to be done. Yet to dwell
upon this difference would be misleading, and tend
to obscure the very point of the analysis. Intelligence,
as the name (O-UVEO-JC) implies, is the power of putting
two and two together, of " applying what one knows "
to new cases. The origination which is the mark of
the truly good man may be something more than

* Grant gives as an example of the latter :
Preservation of health is good ;

Abstinence from intellectual labour is preservation of health —
explaining that the result of this syllogism will be the preservation of
health but the sacrifice of mental culture.

t See Stewart in loco.

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES : PRUDENCE. H3

this, but, at any rate, it involves this : before he can
originate he must be able to apply. Moreover, there
is a kind of originality, which just consists in the
power of applying in new and unexpected ways
principles already acknowledged. The political or
social reformer, for instance, is an originator, yet when
we analyze the changes which he advocates, we usually
find them to be merely the application to new cases of
principles which society has already admitted. Slave
emancipation was merely the application to the negro
of principles already recognized among white men ;
factory legislation only extended to the workshop
principles of health and decency already acknow
ledged at home and in the school. Even private
morality consists, to a great extent, in the suc
cessful application of general principles to particular
cases. Perhaps it is not going too far to say that
half the moral obliquity in the world consists in failing
to apply on Monday what one has admitted upon
Sunday, the other half in failing to see that what
applies to A applies also to B.

(c) The last of the qualities mentioned in these
sections is yvcJjur?, which Grant translates " considerate-
ness," Peters, less happily, " judgment." To under
stand the relation of this quality, so hastily described
in the text, to morality in general, we must recall some
of the conclusions already reached. All morality, we
have seen, is social. The common distinction between
self-regarding and other-regarding virtues is mislead
ing. As a matter of fact, all conduct operates in a
social medium, and necessarily affects others as well

144 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

as one's self. Rightness and wrongness in conduct,
therefore, does not depend on its being either self-
regarding or other-regarding, but upon its bearing on
the life of the whole community, on its being whole-
regarding — "wholesome." This involves a power of
detachment from particular interests, whether our
own or others', and of assuming the attitude which
Adam Smith describes as that of the "impartial
spectator." It is this power that Aristotle has in
view in his remarks on yvwjjui. I have translated it
by "sense," but we should not be far wrong if we
translated it straight away " common sense." It is the
power of instinctively perceiving what is required in
the interests of the community. This general
description is illustrated by the examples which
Aristotle himself gives of its exercise. One of the
most striking occasions for this impartiality is when
an adjustment of social claims requires to be made
contrary to the letter of the law, i.e. where there is a
conflict between law and justice, and appeal is
made to equity. Equity is the "correction of the
law/'* and it has its basis in nothing more recon
dite than the kind of sense we are speaking of.
"Sense," says Aristotle, is "the faculty of coming to a
right decision on matters of equity," and equity itself
is elsewhere defined as merely the application of
good sense to practice.f Another of the typical
occasions on which there is call for the exercise of

* See Ethics, V. i. 3. Cp. Rhet. I. xiii. (Note F), which ought to
be read in connexion with the present passage.

t " The man of sense forms his own judgment ; the equitable man
acts on the judgment thus formed " (M. M. ii. 2).

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES : PRUDENCE. 145

this faculty is when we conceive ourselves to have
been wronged. The man of good sense is here the man
who can put himself in the place of the wrong-doer,
and " makes every allowance " for him. This " allow
ance " is what the Greeks catted cruyyvw/zrj, usually
translated "forgiveness," but really "sympathy" or
"common sense."

It seems hardly necessary to call attention to the
educational bearings of these sections. If the good
life is the purposeful life, and the relation of means to
purpose follows the lines of the practical syllogism
— if, further, the good life is the consistent life, and
implies the faculty of applying a general principle in
detail, the ordinary distinction between intellectual
and moral training is seen to be illusory.

Similarly, if the good life is the "equitable" life, we
have in the remarks upon "sense" some suggestions
that may be useful for the proper understanding of the
current educational theory of the relation of imagina
tion and sympathy to practice. It has become a com
monplace to emphasize the training of imagination
and sympathy as factors in conduct. The Aristotelian
doctrine, however, goes beyond this, and indicates the
precise kind of sympathy that is here required. Thus
it is important to note that it is not merely the
power of feeling with others in the sense of respond
ing to their feelings, but the power of feeling for
them, that is here meant. The infection of feeling
—the vague "sensibility" which was the fashion
in the earlier part of the century — is one thing ; the
power of putting one's self in the place of another and

L

146 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

sharing his ends is quite another. But, secondly, it (
is the power of sympathizing with the moral element \
in another's ends. It is possible to sympathize with
bad ends as well as with good ones, and be all the
worse for such a power of sympathy. Our feelings
for " others " have therefore to be checked and
regulated by a feeling for the common good — our
"sensibility" by common sense.

§ 4. Prudence and Moral Virtue.

[VI. cc. xii. and xiii.]

The relation between Prudence and Moral Virtue
is arrived at in the course of the reply which Aristotle
gives to the question what is the use of insight.
The first part of the discussion refers to both forms
of intellectual virtue ; the second part is confined
to Prudence. The reply in the former consists in
showing that utility is here a false standard. What
is useful is desired for the sake of something else —
that which it is useful for. Prudence and Wisdom
cannot be useful in this sense, for they are elements
in that from which everything else derives utility,
viz. happiness or perfection. There is indeed a
sense in which we may say that they are useful.
We may distinguish between the possession and the
exercise of these qualities, and looking to the former
may hold it to be useful. But we must be careful
in this case to remember that by useful we here
mean not something which is used for something
else, being itself different from it, as e.g. medicine is
useful for health, but something which already is

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 14;

potentially that which it is useful for, as good con
dition is useful for the enjoyment of good health.

Aristotle, however, seems to feel that in this reply
he does not really come to close grips with the
problem of the true relation between Prudence and
Moral Virtue, and, making a new start, proposes " to
carry the question a step further back " by inquir
ing what precisely is implied in the latter. Our
previous discussion has shown that there are two
sides or elements in every good act. In the first
place, it is what ought to be done, what " may be
expected of a good man ; " and, secondly, it is the
conscious adaptation of means to a good end. But
the power of adapting means to end is what we call
natural ability, which stands to Prudence as natural
virtue in general stands to virtue proper. This gives
us the required clue. For just as the natural virtues
require to be moulded and regulated by social habits
in order that they may become sources of usefulness
to society,* so " this eye of the soul " requires the
transforming influence of good training in order that it
may become a useful social quality, t After illustrating
the view of the nature of true moral virtue, to which
he is thus led, by a criticism of the Socratic doctrine
on the one hand and common opinion on the other
(which he treats as exaggerations of opposite sides of
the truth), Aristotle sums up his reply to the main
problem in the words : " It is impossible to be good
in the proper sense without prudence, or prudent
without goodness " (xiii. § 6).

* See p. 70. t See Note I.

148 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

In the answer to our question as thus stated, it
would seem at first sight as though, instead of a
solution, Aristotle had given us a paradox — as though,
in fact, the discussion ends where it ought to have
begun, in a clear (statement of the problem. The
source, it appears, of true insight or prudence is virtue ;
but if we ask whence virtue itself comes, the answer
is, from insight or prudence. Without virtue, then, no
prudence — without prudence, no virtue. But the
solution of this circle — so far as solution in the
ordinary sense is possible — has already been given : it
has been, in fact, the aim of the whole of the Ethics
up to this point to give it. We have only to gather
the elements of it together and re-state them in the
particular form required. As the true understanding
of this paradox is perhaps the best test of a sound
ethical philosophy, it may be useful to conclude this
section by attempting such a re-statement.

I. Virtue is the habit of doing what is right — as
Aristotle puts it, of doing " all that may be expected
of a good man." This is true ; indeed, to readers of
the Ethics, a truism. But it is very easy to miss the
precise limits within which it is true. Thus, it is
easy so to emphasize the influence of habit, training,
tradition, upon the view a man takes of what is
morally good and desirable as to throw the function
of individual reason and judgment into the shade. It
is one of the evidences of the sanity of the philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle that it does not fall into this
exaggeration. The chief danger to the Greek
community came from the side of able unscrupulous

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES : PRUDENCE. 149

leaders, imperfectly imbued with the moral tradition
which the State embodied. In Themistocles, Al-
cibiades, Callias, and Pausanias, Athens and Sparta
had had fatal experience of this type of character.
The Greek philosophers were greatly impressed with
its dangers, the Republic of Plato being in reality the
sketch of a system of education and polity specially
designed to meet them. Yet even in Plato the
whole course of education proceeds on the assump
tion that morality which is merely conventional is "a
shadow and slavish quality," and that the supreme
aim of the legislator is the development of the highest
powers of reason and intelligence in the future
citizens. Modern writers * have not always succeeded
in avoiding the pitfall here indicated, and in their
eagerness to establish the influence of authority and
tradition have sometimes lent encouragement to the
view that the foundations of moral belief are external
to a man, and that reason and insight make no
substantive addition to life and happiness.

2. Virtue is adaptation of means to end. It there
fore involves the exercise of individual reason — is, in
fact, a matter of private judgment. Here also it is
easy to go wrong, and to lay so much stress on this
side of the truth as to make it appear that emancipa
tion, enlightenment, " illumination," is the only, or at
least the chief, requisite for life and happiness. This
is what the Rousseau-Godwin school in modern times
has succeeded in doing. Among the contemporaries of
Aristotle we know that there was a school of thinkers

* Of whom Burke is a favourable example.

150 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

(whom he identifies with " Socrates ") who leaned to
this heresy. Here again it is evidence of the sanity of
the great thinkers, amongst them probably Socrates
himself, that they clearly saw the place of moral habit
as an essential condition of enlightened judgment.

Following them, we must endeavour to give their
due weight to both these elements in the truth. Not
only must both be held at the same time : both must
be held in union. Education is a process of illumina
tion. It is necessary to have tine's eyes opened to
see the meaning of social ends. Those who mean
well, and endeavour to conform to tradition or follow
authority without seeing clearly what the good is
which they mean, make the bigots and obscurantists
of an age, and may under particular circumstances
be just as great a danger to social order as
those who see well enough the meaning of their
actions, but mean badly. On the other hand, in.
order that one may see clearly what social good rer
quires, it is necessary to have appropriated the reason
embodied in the tradition, and be familiar as a matter
of practice with its operation. In this respect moral
truth is not really different from scientific, and may
be illustrated from it. People sometimes speak of
the truths of science as though the apprehension of
them were merely a matter of intellectual grasp.
But every teacher knows that to understand and
realize a scientific principle the student requires long
training and practical familiarity with the scope and
method of the particular science within which it falls.
In the same manner, and all the more because the

X. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES : PRUDENCE. 151

end itself is ultimately a state of the will, it is true
that what we call a moral principle can only be under
stood in the light of the systematic effort to realize
it in practice.

§ 5. Prudence and Wisdom.

J J

[VI. c. xiii. § 8.]

The question of th$ relation between Prudence and
Wisdom tca'n only be fully treated after the discussion
of the latter. The answer to it is, however, to a
certain extent anticipated in the last section of the
passage before us, in which Aristotle meets the objec
tion that the above account of Prudence, by assigning
to it the supreme place in the state as the maker and
administrator of law, places Wisdom and Philosophy
in the position of subjects. This, he says, is wholly to
misunderstand, indeed to reverse their true relation to
each other. The legislator may be said to be master
over the citizens, and to give directions how they are
to Conduct themselves as he gives directions for the
conduct of a religious festival. But just as in the
latter case the directions are issued, not for the
guidance of the sgods, but with the view of providing
for th£ir worship, so the laws are made, not with a
view to regulating and defining the course of thought
and philosophy, but with a view to providing for their
exercise.* In other words, the function of Prudence
is to organize the resources of civilization so as to
make them available for the life of Thought. Aristotle
would not have denied that there was a sense in

152 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP. X.

which the opposite was true, and that thought and
philosophy might be " useful " by contributing to
man's control over nature and so strengthening and
extending the material basis of happiness. What he
here insists upon, and^ rightly insists upon, is that
their " utility " does not end here, but that they con
stitute a substantive element in happiness itself — are,
in fact, the soul of which all the other elements of
happiness are the body. This twofold aspect is
well brought out by Professor Stewart when he
says : " To have this ideal " (the ideal of a complete
life), " it is not, indeed, necessary to be one's self a
'philosopher' or 'thinker,' or actually to lead the
separate ' contemplative life,' strictly so called ; but it
is necessary to live in a city which has thinkers and
is regulated for the sake of them." From this point
of view, thought and philosophy are a necessity in
civilized communities, not primarily because they are
of use in providing for its material needs, but because
they represent an element without which the moral
and intellectual qualities which are its most precious
possession must fail to reach their full development.*

* Cp. what Dr. Bosanquet says of art, philosophy, and religion :
"Art, philosophy, and religion, though in a sense the very life-blood
of society, are not and could not be directly fashioned to meet the needs
and uses of the multitude, and their aim is not in that sense 'social.'
They should rather be regarded as a continuation within, and founded
upon the commonwealth of the work which the commonwealth begins
in realizing human nature ; as fuller utterances of the same universal
self which the ' general will ' reveals in more precarious forms ; and as
in the same sense implicit in the consciousness of all, being an inherit
ance which is theirs so far as they can take possession of it " (Philoso
phical Theory of the State, p. 333).

( 153 )

CHAPTER XL

WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY.

• "When I say that the government is best under which men lead
a peaceable life, I mean* that life of man which consists not only in the
circulation of the blood and other properties common to all animals, but
whose chief part is reason, and the true life and excellence of the mind."

SPINOZA.

§ i. Definition of Philosophy.
[VI. c. i. § 5-]

WE have already seen that Wisdom, or Philosophy, is
concerned with those elements of reality which depend
upon unalterable principles, and is defined as " scientific
knowledge of the most precious things, with the crown
of perfection upon it." Before going on further to
discuss the peculiar place that is claimed for it in
human life and happiness, ,it is necessary to try to
define more precisely what we are to understand by
the term.

Assuming that the scientific as opposed to the
calculative reason has for its object the unalterable
principles of reality,* how can we distinguish Philosophy
from other kinds of scientific knowledge ? Or, to

* In what sense this is true has been seen p. 139 above.

154 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

put it otherwise, what are we to understand by " the
most precious things " of which we are told Philosophy
is the knowledge ? The very form of the question
seems to suggest that Science and Philosophy have
different objects, and when he is dealing with the
precise difference between them Aristotle tends to
dwell upon this distinction. In this spirit he differ
entiates, in a well-known passage in the Metaphysics,*
two kinds of knowledge, one of which busies itself
with the investigation of what is changeable and
incomplete, i.e. contained as an attribute in something
else, the other with what is eternal and self-contained.
The former kind is what we should understand by
science, falling, according to Aristotle, into two main
divisions, viz. mathematics and physics. There is,
however, in Aristotle a wider sense of the term
philosophy, according to which it is taken as a
description of knowledge, or theory in general, falling
into the three great groups of mathematical, physical,
and theological or first philosophy. According to
this view, these sciences represent rather stages in
the deepening of the knowledge of reality which
reaches its furthest point in that which is par excellence
philosophy, than fields distinct from one another or
from philosophy itself. It is in accordance with this
view of the scope of philosophy that Aristotle at the
beginning of the Metaphysics, in enumerating the
marks that distinguish philosophical from other kinds
of knowledge, notes that it is concerned with every

* Metaphysics K 7 ; cf. Stewart, ii. p. 55. Wallace's Outlines of the
Philosophy of Aristotle^ p. 23.

XI. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 155

form of reality and differs from scientific knowledge
in the ordinary sense in its greater abstruseness, ex
actness, thoroughness, and disinterestedness. These
two points of view are reconciled with one another
by noting that while philosophy is distinguished from
mathematical and physical science in being concerned
with the eternal and self-contained, we are not to
suppose that the " things " with which it is concerned
form a class by themselves. Philosophy is concerned
with the reality that underlies the world about us, not
with any metaphysical realities beyond it. It is there
fore not so much a separate science, with a particular
field of its own, as a particular way of treating that
world of reality which is the object of all science.

It is quite true that Aristotle sometimes speaks of
God and human reason in its highest form as realities
"separable" from the rest of the world, and in a
passage we have already considered he seems to
regard the stars of heaven as in a special sense the
objects of "philosophy." But we must be careful
how we take such passages. Without entangling
ourselves in the metaphysical difficulties they
suggest, it may be pointed out that Aristotle has no
doubt in his own mind that the nature of the
ultimate realities which we call God and Reason is
discoverable only by the analysis of the particular
forms of reality which we see about us, and, secondly,
that the stars of heaven have the place of pre-eminence
assigned to them as objects of philosophical thought
just because they are conceived of by Aristotle, in
common with Plato, as representing in a special sense

156 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

the source of the reason and intelligence which is the
ultimate principle of reality in the world.*

Returning to the passage before us, the reader will
now be prepared to understand that while it is the
narrower sense of the term .which is probably here
uppermost in Aristotle's mind, it would be a mistake
so to interpret it as to exclude all reference to
thought and science in general.

§ 2. Apparent Exaggeration in Aristotle s Doctrine.

Even in the light of this wider interpretation of the
term, however, these sections strike us at first as
somewhat paradoxical and exaggerated in the im
portance they assign to science and philosophy as a
source of happiness. We have hitherto followed the
argument without much difficulty. Happiness, we
have seen, consists in the excellent discharge of
human function. This excellence, we have further
seen, has two sides, according as we consider it to
consist in a habitual attitude of the will to the calls
of life, or in insight into the meaning of life. In the
one aspect we call it moral : in the other, intellectual
virtue. Uniting them, we define true happiness as
that of the intelligent citizen who loyally accepts the
responsibilities of his station and lives to the honour
of his country.

But here is something which it is more difficult to
bring into line with ordinary moral conceptions. The
spirit of sobriety with which the argument has hitherto

* See Grant, op. cit. i. p. 286.

XI. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 157

been conducted seems to be abandoned, and we are
asked to recognize a still higher kind of happiness in
a life which is the opposite of that just described in
every essential particular. In the first place, it is
exclusive. Not only is it a life that implies special
endowments and considerable leisure, but it is one of
comparative isolation, in which even friendship plays
an insignificant part, and the truly happy man seems
kto be he who "stands most alone." Secondly, it is
unrelated to the ordinary business and calls of life,
which are conceived of rather as a disturbance than
as opportunities for the realization of happiness.
Thirdly, instead of giving us a deeper hold of mortal
life, and putting us in closer touch with humanity, it
consists in the endeavour to put off our mortality
through the development of the faculty of reason,
which is apparently conceived of as something super
human.

It is true that this paradox does not originate with
Aristotle, having been inherited by him from Plato,
who had already given a somewhat mystical character
to the highest happiness. But there is a tone of
sobriety in all that Plato says in this connexion,
which for the nonce we seem to miss in Aristotle.
" Aristotle," says Grant,* " is less delicate and reverent
than Plato in his mode of speaking of human happi
ness, especially as attained by the philosopher. In
Plato there seems often, if not always, present a
sense of the weakness of the individual as contrasted
with the eternal and the divine. If Plato requires

* Op. cit. i. p. 215.

158 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

philosophy to make morality, he also always infuses
morality into philosophy. The philosopher in his
pictures does not triumph over the world, but rather
is glad to seize on ' some tradition,' * like a stray
plank,' to prevent his being lost ; he feels that his
philosophy on earth is a ' knowing in part.' Arisf
totle, on the contrary, rather over-represents the
strength of philosophy. And in his picture of the
happiness of the philosopher we cannot but feel that
there is over-much elation, and something that requires
toning down." Yet all the art of Plato cannot conceal
the gap between the life of the ordinary citizen and
of the philosopher, and Aristotle's bluntness only
makes explicit what we have already half realized in
Plato.

§ 3. Explanations.

The difficulty which these sections thus suggest
has been met by commentators in different ways.
Professor Stewart takes the heroic course of denying
its existence. We must not suppose, he says, in
commenting on c. vii. §§ 4-7, that the CTO^OC, or wise
man, as described here, exists as an individual to bear
away the prize of actual happiness from the &'/ca*oe,
or just man. The contemplative life is not a separate
life co-ordinate with the political, but a spirit which
penetrates and ennobles the latter. Philosophy, accord
ing to this view, does not separate the philosopher
from practical life, but merely prevents him from
being absorbed in its details. Similarly, the " leisure "

XT. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 159

that is spoken of must be taken to consist, not in
" an impossible immunity from the ' interruptions ' of
practical life," but in ." the quiet of a well-regulated
mind." Professor Stewart admits that there are
passages in which the contemplative and the practical
life are contrasted as those of the student or savant
and the public man respectively, but he maintains that
in these sections Aristotle wishes to call attention
to the immaterial essence of life — of man's life as a
whole as distinguished from its concrete manifesta
tions in individuals.

Attractive as this explanation is, the language in
these sections, as in other descriptions of the "theoretic
life," seems to prove that the writer has in view a
special kind of life rather than a spirit which should
permeate the whole of life. Both in Plato and Aris
totle there is an unmistakable note of dissatisfaction^
with the scope and opportunities of the practical life
leading on to an attempt to mark out a higher field
of exercise for the human reason, in which the dis
cords and limitations that meet us in the lower have
disappeared. So far from desiring to ignore this
feature of their philosophy, or put a gloss upon it,
I should wish to emphasize it as a proof of their
greatness. There is a narrowness in the ideal of the
practical life as commonly conceived which renders it
unfit to be taken as coterminous with complete
human happiness. Man, it is true, is a "political
animal." He is a dweller in cities, and has elective
affinities with his neighbours at every point of his life.
When there is any danger of cutting him off from

160 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

these " organic filaments," and treating him as a mere
individual, it is important to emphasize this side of
his nature. He is this, at least. But he is also some
thing more. He is a dweller in the world, and has
affinities with all time and all reality, with the ages
past and future, with the stars of heaven, and with
the Spirit

" Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns."

These, too, as well as the mortal things of human
fellowship, touch him. In knowing them he comes
to know himself. But, further, in the practical life
as known to the Greeks, there were defects which
rendered it even more inadequate as a field for
the higher sort of human effort. If, as we have
come to see, it is impossible to confine human
sympathies within any limits narrower than those
of humanity itself, no loyalty to the mutual services
required by a community of a few thousand privileged
persons can compensate for the essential imper
fections of such an ideal. May we not, therefore, be
allowed to see, in the longing regard which the Greek
philosophers turned to the contemplative life, evidence
of a lurking discontent with current ideals, and to
find in passages like the present a more or less
conscious protest, not only against the spirit of
worldliness or philistinism, contenting itself with a
narrow practicality, but also against the spirit of
Hellenism, limiting the scope of human sympathies
within the bounds of a single nationality ? Accepting
this view for the present, we are able to do justice to

XI. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. l6l

the truth contained in the Aristotelian conception,
and at the same time to recognize its limitations.

§ 4. The Sanity of Aristotle s Conception.

We shall best realize the inherent sanity of Aris
totle's conception of the higher blessedness if we
compare it with other forms which the protest against
the narrowness of popular ideals has taken.

(i.) Plato and Aristotle were not alone in feeling the
narrowness of the existing social order. Some of the
contemporary and even the preceding schools of philo
sophy had recognized it even more explicitly than
either of these two great teachers, and were already
feeling their way towards something more universal.
Probably the first actual protests against the exclusive-
ness of Hellenism came from the followers of Socrates
who were known as the Cynics,* but it was in the teach
ing of the Stoics that the idea of a citizenship of the
world gained fullest expression.! For the picture of
the Good Citizen, as sketched in the great philsophers,
these schools substituted definitely that of the Wise
Man. It is true that the Stoics did not go so far as
their Epicurean contemporaries, whose watchword,
Aa0£ jSiwa-ac (" Court the shade "), sufficiently
indicated their attitude towards the busy life of the
public man ; but there is a strong tendency even
among the Stoics to represent the philosopher as
one to whom the limitations of the actual state were

* See Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools, p. 231.
t Zeller's Stoics, Epictireans and Sceptics, p. 308.

M

1 62 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

unendurable.* Some of them seem even to have held
that adherence to the life of " philosophy " absolved
from the v obligation to observe the decencies and
conventions of ordinary society ; from which it was
only a small step to the interpretation of " wisdom "
itself as consisting in a merely negative attitude to
all that is valuable in civilization, including science
and philosophy themselves. In contrast to these ex
aggerations, Aristotle's picture, in endeavouring to hold
the balance between the citizen and the philosopher,
first, by representing the life of good citizenship as
a means to the life of leisure or philosophy, and,
second, by identifying the latter with that highest
form of intellectual activity which is the end and
soul of civilization — is common-sense itself.

(ii.) How sane is Aristotle's plea regarded as a
protest against the absorption of human energies in
secular business, and the ever-present tendency to forget
the end in the means of life, will appear if we com
pare it with other ideals which have been accepted
at various times and places in the supposed interest of
the spiritual part of man. Monasticism, both in the
East and in the West, is such an ideal. Yet how
great the difference ! Seeking refuge from the imper
fections and limitations of the worldly life, the human
spirit here finds it in seclusion from the ordinary
interests and activities of mankind. While recognizing
that the higher life must be found in a state of
heightened consciousness, Western monastics have
held that preparation for it consisted, not in the

* Ibid. p. 305, n. 4.

XI. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 163

effort more fully to realize the import of our present
life, but partly in a destructive physical discipline,
partly in the contemplation of the unknown and un
knowable. The Eastern ideal, delicate and beautiful
as it appears in the higher forms of Buddhism, has
always tended to represent the end itself as a form of
passivity, and even vacuity, of mind following upon
the negation of desire. Contrasted with these ideas,
Wisdom, as conceived by Aristotle, presents two
features which are the marks of truth. In the first
place, it is activity, and activity of the highest element
in man. To possess this wisdom is thus to heighten,
instead of to depress, the sense of living. Secondly,
it is a deepening of the present, and not merely the
preparation for a future life. It is true that Aristotle
speaks of it as a putting off of our mortality, but the im
mortality which he has in view consists not in an other-
world life foreign to the present, but in the power of
seeing the eternal principles or laws of which our own
world is the expression.

§ 5. Theoria as the True Understanding' of Life.

The fact remains that Aristotle seems unduly to con
fine the scope of contemplation to what we should
understand by science and philosophy, thus causing a
twofold difficulty in the gap he leaves, on the one hand,
between the practical and the theoretic life, and on
the other, between the Greek and the Christian ideal.
Even philosophy he seems to take in a limited sense,
as in a former passage he has expressly told us that

1 64 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAI-.

human life itself cannot be included among the
highest objects of human thought. We have already
had occasion to point out the effect of this limita
tion. Had Aristotle recognized more clearly that
the good life is itself one of the "most precious
things" of the world, he would have left at least
one clear link of connexion between the practical
and the contemplative life, for we could then have
understood, from one side at least, how "theory"
may react upon our every-day life by correcting
its ideals and vindicating its ends. Even so,
however, the difficulty would remain that, as con
trasted with the Christian ideal, access to the highest
happiness is through the strait and narrow gate of
intellectual attainment and abundant leisure.

This last difficulty is one which cannot, from the
nature of the case, be wholly removed ; yet we can go
i/some distance in the direction of meeting it if we notice
a further extension of the meaning of the Greek tJieoria,
which, although clearly not explicitly present in the
writer's mind, yet was never very far from the thoughts
of the Greeks in this connexion. Besides the more
technical sense in which it is used of more recondite
studies, the word has the wider meaning of contem
plation in general, and especially the contemplation
that is directed to beauty in every form. It is in
this sense that, in a passage already referred to, the
biographer of Pythagoras uses the word. The highest
kind of happiness, which consists in "the contem
plation of the fairest things," is there compared to
the object which the nobler class of spectators at

XL WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 165

the Olympic games set before themselves, viz. "to
see the country and fine works of art and every
excellence of word and deed." That Aristotle him
self does not suggest this extension of the idea
seems the more surprising, as he has already shown
(c. vii. I, § 2) that popular language itself in the use
of the word "wise" bears witness to the connexion
between the insight of the painter and sculptor and that
of the philosopher. We know, moreover, from the well-
known passage in the Poetics where he compares
poetry with history, that he was prepared to claim
for the former that it was "more serious and more
philosophical " than the latter, on the express ground
that it reveals to us not individual facts but universal
principles of human action. If we ask the reason
why, with so natural an extension of the word so close
at hand, he here limits himself to the narrower mean
ing, the explanation is no doubt partly to be looked
for, as Professor Stewart suggests, in the partiality
of the thinker and philosopher for his own favourite
pursuit, but partly also in the fact that at this point
in his argument the trutfi he is anxious to emphasize'
is that human life is incomplete unless it leads us to
the conscious apprehension of principles that are
universal and necessary. According to the view
which he shared with Plato, it was in the study of
philosophy, of which mathematics, physics, and
theology, including astronomy, were parts, that these
features of reality stood most clearly out and were
most unmistakable. It was through it, therefore, that
the human mind was led most directly to the point

1 66 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

of view from which it could see all things sub specie
aeternitatis and reach, for the moment at least, the
supreme goal of life. To these explanations we ought,
perhaps, to add the peculiar Greek view of the work
of the poet and artist which Aristotle shared with
his contemporaries. Both by Plato and Aristotle the
poet and artist are apt to be regarded as, at best, the
professional exponents of truths which they imperfectly
realize. They are rather the unconscious instruments
than the free exponents of the Divine Spirit in the
world. The " contemplation," on the other hand, which
both Plato and Aristotle have in view when they speak
of Philosophy, requires a detachment of mind which
they conceived of as impossible to those who made
art or literature a profession, and as only to be found
in the pursuit of truth for its own sake. Yet that
Aristotle has no intention of excluding art and litera
ture, but holds, on the contrary, that when used
as sources of enjoyment and not as a profession,
they minister directly to the higher life, we see
clearly from the well-known passage in the Politics
which treats of the place of the arts in education.*
Aristotle there takes it for granted that art and
literature minister to the higher form of happiness
and are the proper occupations of the life of leisure,
treating the ordinary school curriculum, in a few
suggestive strokes, as a preparation, not so much for
the business as for the enjoyment of life.

* Politics, VIII., especially c.iii. §3 foil., which the student interested
in education would do well to read in connexion with the sections
before us. See Note G.

XI. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 167

Applying this extension of the term to the present
passage, we reach a point of view from which it can
be seen that there is in Aristotle's mind a closer
connexion between the theoretic and the practical life
than that indicated by the text. If " philosophy " be
taken to include art and literature, it is impossible to
regard it as merely a new and higher occupation which
practical life subserves by furnishing the necessary
external conditions. For art and poetry are neither
something wholly out of relation to life nor yet a
mere imitation of it: They mirror life, but they
mirror it — and this Aristotle was perhaps the first to
teach — at its best, and are thus, to use a modern
phrase, in their essence a " criticism of life." Their
function is to raise life to a higher power by teaching
us what it really is — what it has in it to become.

It cannot, of course, be maintained that any ex
tension of the Greek theoria which it is legitimate
to suggest will suffice to bridge completely the gulf
between Aristotelian and modern conceptions. Yet
two things remain to be said. First, though there
was a time— and not very long ago — when the life of
leisure as above conceived seemed an impossible ideal
for the great mass of mankind, in these latter days a
great hope has sprung up that this will not always be
so. I Already, by the socialization of the means of en
joyment in science, art, and literature, this ideal may be
said to have been brought within measurable distance.
Secondly, having acknowledged that the deeper
insight which, stripped of technicalities, consists in the
recognition and acceptance of eternal laws underlying

l68 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP. XI.

reality in any of its manifold forms, may come through
art and culture if only the heart is pure, as well as
through philosophy in the technical sense, there is
less difficulty in going a step further and asking
why it may not also come through life itself under
the same condition. In making this suggestion we
may seem to have left Aristotle far behind. Yet in
the sphere of practice, Aristotle has himself taught
us that a man arrives at a knowledge of what is truly
good through the discipline of good actions. It is
only an extension of this principle to recognize that
through a still fuller acceptance of the ends of life,
prudence may pass into a still higher wisdom, the
insight of the practical man into that of the philosopher,
vision of Good in the City into vision of Good in the
World.

169

CHAPTER XII.

FRIENDSHIP.

" Nature doth presume that how many men there are in the world, so
many gods, as it were, there are, or at least ought to he, towards men."

HOOKER.

" The good which a man seeks and loves, he will love with oreater
constancy if he sees that others love it too."

SPINOZA.

§ I. The Place of Friendship in Aristotle s Scheme
of the Virtues.

THE place which Friendship is intended to occupy in
Aristotle's scheme of the virtues is not at once obvious.
We have already heard of a virtue of Friendliness,
which is defined as the mean with regard to
pleasantness in life generally— the man who is
"sweet and pleasant in the right way" being the
friendly man.* But clearly something far more than
this is here intended. Moreover, although in the
introductory sentences Aristotle speaks of Friendship
as a virtue, or at least implying virtue, we are clearly
not intended to take this seriously. We have left
the discussion of the "virtues" behind us, nor is
there any attempt made to bring friendship into line
with the rest by treating it as a mean.

* II, vii. § 13; see p. 245.

I/O CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

Yet if we look somewhat further we shall see that
all that is said in these chapters stands in a very
close relation indeed to the main subject of the
Ethics, and forms the natural sequel to the discussion
of the Intellectual Virtues, and especially of Prudence
or Moral Insight, after which it comes in the text. In
discussing Prudence, we saw that man's highest
practical good is realized in the life of the citizen
who not only reflects but understands the moral order
of which he is a part. How is this understanding to
be attained ? Knowledge such as can be imparted
by teaching we have seen is of little or no avail.
The life of contemplation or reflection, which might
be supposed to lead to it, is only possible as a
development of this earlier form of wisdom, which it
therefore presupposes. Moral insight must spring, if
it springs at all, from moral experience — from faith
fulness to the actual requirements of the moral life.
So much we know, but we may go on to ask for some
more precise account of the kind of experience by
which, under the conditions of ordinary life, this
moral awakening may be expected to take place.
Whence in detail this birth into the higher know
ledge, this more vivid sense of the spirit's life ?

The chapters before us are really an answer to this
question. So far as it is possible to fix on any one
principle to which may be assigned the function of
mediating between conventional obedience to law and
true moral insight, that principle is Friendship. To
explain how it does so is the object of Books VIII.
and IX., the conclusion of which may here be summed

XII. FRIENDSHIP. I/1

up in a word, (i) The interchange of social service
when suffused with private affection comes home to
us as a part of our real life in a way it cannot when it
takes place between strangers. Here, as elsewhere,

" Love lends a precious seeing to the soul."

(2) A friend is a second self, and by holding the mirror
up to nature enables us to realize more fully what we
ourselves truly are. In these two ways, first (to
repeat) by offering a field where the virtues appear
with the glow of feeling upon them, and therefore at
their best ; secondly, by putting us at a point of view
from which we can appreciate their true beauty and
value, Friendship has its place defined as the mise
en schie — to use Professor Stewart's happy phrase —
of the practical reason.

§ 2. The Natural Roots of Friend ship.
[VIII. c. i. § 3.]

The reader is probably familiar, at least in outline,
with the Platonic conception of Friendship, which has
in fact passed into the currency of ordinary thought
and proverb. Its main features are to be gathered
from the popular dialogues — the Lysis, Symposium,
P/uzdr?is, Republic. It would appear at first, indeed,
as though there were little connexion between the
glow and mysticism of these dialogues and the
chapters before us, in which, with all their beauty and
underlying enthusiasm, we seem to have the essence
of common sense. Yet in all its essential features Aris
totle's teaching on this subject is the same as Plato's.

1/2 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

He commences by noting that the principle of
friendship has its roots in the natural instinct of
kinship, showing itself even in the lower animals, in
the attachment not only of parent to offspring, but
of members of the same species to one another. The
view that man is by nature the friend of man, the
exact contrary, it will be noted, of that of Hobbes,*
which has been the starting-point of so much
of our modern political philosophy, had already
been stated by Plato, who found the deepest form
of it in the attachment of the opposite sexes and
the family affection that flows from it. Plato, how
ever, had gone further, and made the characteristic
suggestion that this " mystery of love " has its real
roots in the desire of self-perpetuation, or, as he
expresses it, of immortality. " Marvel not at this,"
says Diotima to Socrates, " if you believe that love
is of the immortal, as we have already admitted ; for
here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal
nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting
and immortal, and this is only to be attained by
generation, because the new is always left in the
place of the old. . . . And in this way, Socrates, the
mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of im
mortality ; but the immortal in another way. Marvel
not, then, at the love which all men have of their off
spring, for that universal love and interest is for the
sake of immortality." f Applying this principle to

* Homo Jiomini lupns.

t Symposium, 207 and 208 (Jowett's tr. is used with slight alterations
in these quotations).

XII. FRIENDSHIP. 1/3

friendship proper, Plato finds an illustration of it in the
great historic acts of friendship. " Do you imagine,"
continues Diotima, " that Alcestis would have died
on behalf of Admetus, or Achilles to do honour to
Patroclus, or your own Codrus to preserve the kingdom
for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory
of their virtues which is still retained among us would
be immortal ? Nay, I am persuaded that all men
do all things for the sake of the glorious fame of
immortal virtue ; and the better they are, the more
they desire it, for they are ravished with the desire of
the immortal."

§ 3. Friends Jiip as the Basis of Political Union. ( \]

[VIII. c. i. §4-1

It is only a further extension of the same idea in
Plato when it is explained that love or friendship
so understood is the principle by which States are
founded and perpetuated. Thus it is pointed out in
the passage from which the above quotations are
taken, that while the animals, and man so far as he
is animal, find immortality in the transmission of their
bodily forms, the human soul finds it in the trans
mission of its own character and actions. Thus it is
that great legislators, such as Solon and Lycurgus,
have been moved by the desire to raise up a spiritual
seed who shall hand on, not only their name and fame,
but that form of wisdom "which is concerned with
the ordering of states or families." It is, however, in
the Republic that Plato recognizes in greatest detail

1/4 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

the significance of friendship as the bond of union in
society. The whole system of social and political
organization which is there sketched has indeed for
its single object the creation of a spirit of friendship
among the citizens, and the regulation of those forms
of it upon which the future of the state depends.*

Aristotle is only following in the same lines when
he emphasizes the importance of friendship as a bond
of civic life (VIII. c. i. § 4). He even seems to
go a step further. While Plato had insisted that
friendship of the right sort could only develop upon
a basis of law and justice, Aristotle seems to suggest
that it may be a substitute for them. " If citizens be
friends, there is no need of justice ; whereas if they
are just they still need friendship as well." Students
of the history of Greek philosophy have even seen
in these words an anticipation of the Epicurean
philosophy of the next generation, in which this step
was actually taken, and " Societies of Friends " substi
tuted for legal and political associations. But this is
very far from Aristotle's meaning, as is subsequently
made clear in c. ix., which must be taken along with
what is here said.

In the latter passage it is shown that friendship
tends to follow the line of the various modes in which
the citizens group themselves for social purposes, and
that, in addition to the division of friendship into
different kinds according to the "object" aimed at, we
have another according to the social function it sub
serves. Aristotle does not propose to substitute the

* See especially Rep. V. 462 foil.

X11- FRIENDSHIP. 175

subjective principle of private friendship for more
" objective " bonds of union. These rest upon human
needs as essential as that of friendship itself. The
sentence in chapter i. is only Aristotle's way of saying
that no system of law and politics, however perfect in
theory, can work in practice which is not the expres
sion of the personal good-will of the citizens to one
another. Even business "contracts," although usually
supposed to lie outside the sphere of sentiment, depend
for their due fulfilment upon feelings of friendship and
co-operation, which have their source in an underlying
sense that the parties to the bargain are something
more to one another than contractors in a money
transaction, and have an interest in a common good
which is not exhausted by it.*

§ 4. Friendship as a Means of Individual

Perfection.
[IX. c. ix. §§ i foil.]

But friendship is not only the bond of social union,
it is also the bond of individual perfection. It is in
the development of this point that the inwardness of
Aristotle's doctrine, and its essential agreement with
Plato's, comes most Tully into view.

We have seen how, according to Plato, friendship
has its roots in the love of a man for himself, and
the consequent desire for immortality. But there is
a deeper longing still in every man, of which this
desire of self-perpetuation is only a reflection. It is
not really himself that he desires, but good. " You
* On the function of justice in the State, see Note A,yfo.

1/6 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S EfMlCS. CHAP.

hear people say that lovers are seeking for the half
of themselves ; but I say that they are seeking
neither for the half nor for the whole, unless the half
or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off
their own hands and feet and cast them away if
they are evil, for they love them not because they
are their own, but because they are good ; and dislike
them not because they are another's, but because
they are evil. There is nothing which men love but
the good." * But there is no true good but goodness
and beauty, and the question that is always upper
most in Plato's mind is how a man is to be trained in
the love of these. His answer, as is well known, is:
through the love or friendship of companions whose
souls are good and beautiful. Attracted to them at
first by some accidental or superficial quality such as
physical beauty, the soul is led on from beauty of
form to beauty of action, and from beauty of
action to beauty of character and ideas, and finally
to understand what beauty itself means. " The true
order of going or being led to the things of love," he
says, in a passage which sums up the whole of his
teaching on this head, " is for a man to use trie-beauties
of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards for
the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two,
and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms
to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions,
until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of
absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence
of beauty is." f

* Symposiicm, 205. t Ibid. 211.

XIT- FRIENDSHIP. 177

Stripped of its mysticism and "flamboyancy," we
have essentially the same doctrine in the sections
before us. Aristotle develops what he has to say
upon the ethical function of friendship in the form
of an answer to the question whether the happy man
needs friends (IX. c. ix.) : if happiness consists in
being provided with all good things, what is there
which the happy man lacks that a friend can give ?
to say that he needs friends is to say that his
happiness is incomplete. But this is to take a
superficial view of the use of friends. It is true that
there is a sense in which friendship witnesses to
human weakness and imperfection. As Love,
according to Plato, is the child of Poros and Penia
(Plenty and Want), so Aristotle tells us the gods have
no need of friends. But the need to which friendship
answers is not of something external to a man, such
as pleasure or profit. It is a need which is bound up
with his nature as man, viz. the need to realize what is
best and most human in himself. Friends, in fact,
are not an adventitious aid to a man's life. They
represent the larger and truer life that belongs to
him as a social being ; only they represent it in a
more intimate way, in terms that make it more easily
recognizable, than society in general, however de
veloped its form, can do.

This general answer Aristotle develops in c. ix. §§
4-7, which Grant has excellently summarized. The
two most important arguments are given in §§ 5 and
6. We have already anticipated them, but may here
restate them in Grant's words, (i) " Happiness consists

N

1/8 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

in the play of life (Ive/rytm), and he that sees before
his eyes the virtuous acts of a friend has a delightful
sense of the play of life, seeing harmonious action
and identifying it with himself." (2) " The sympathy
and excitement of friends enables a man to prolong
that vivid action and glow of mind which is the
essence of happiness." Finally he returns on his start
ing-point, and just as Plato had traced back the love
of all creatures of the same species for one another
to the desire for immortality, he shows how " from a
deeper point of view " friendship is rooted in the
most fundamental of all instincts — the love of life.

§ 5. The Kinds of Friendship.

[VIII. c. ii. § i ; c. iii. §§ I foil.]

While thus in the leading features of his doctrine
as to the nature and function of friendship, Aristotle
closely follows Plato, his classification of the|
different forms of friendship is a distinct advance.!
It was just for want of some such classification that
Plato found himself hampered with questions to which
he has not the means of replying.* It is, on the
other hand, just by means of it that Aristotle is able,
as Grant says, to cut straight through these difficulties,
and in the course of doing so to give that air of
finality to his discussion, which, even when compared
with all that has since been written on the subject,
it has never lost.

* For examples taken directly from Plato's Lysis^ see VIII. c. i. §§
6 and 7 (p. 282 below).

XII. FRIENDSHIP. 179

Aristotle speaks throughout of kinds of friendship,
but it is clear from his manner of treatment that he
regards them rather as elements that enter into all
friendship and manifest themselves prominently
according to the stage of development that the
friendship has reached, than as clearly marked
kinds. Thus it is clear from what has been already
said that no partnership which is formed for pleasure
alone or profit alone can have any permanence. There
is honour, we are told, even among thieves. It is the
element of character underlying such connexions that
gives them whatever claim they have to the name of
friendship. Similarly, Aristotle is careful to point
out that the higher kind of friendship does not exclude
pleasure and profit, but merely differs from the others
in the genuineness of the pleasure and profit which
it brings. These forms of friendship, moreover, cor
responding as they do * to different stages in the
development of the rational life in general — that of
absorption in momentary states of pleasure and pain,
that in which more distant objects begin to prevail
over impulse and passion, imagination over sense
experience, and that in which prudence in the narrower
sense becomes merged in prudence in the larger, the
half-truths of imagination in the whole-truth of
reason — may rightly be taken for different phases of
individual development.

It is, as we might expect, in the sections where
Aristotle is engaged in marking off true friendship

* As Dr. Bosanquet has pointed out in his suggestive Syllabus of
Lectures on Leading Conceptions in Aristotle's Ethics,

180 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

from the more imperfect forms, that some of his finest
remarks occur.

True friends, we are told (c. iii. § 6), love one
another " on account of what they are in themselves,
and not on account of any accidental quality. Such
friendship therefore endures so long as each retains
his character, and virtue is a lasting thing " — more
lasting, as we elsewhere learn, than knowledge itself.
True friendship, again, is of slow growth. " The wish
for friendship is of rapid growth, but friendship itself
is not." For this reason (c. iv. § 3) it is "proof
against calumny." Like charity, it hopeth all things,
believeth all things. True friends respect one
(another's rights ; they treat one another as ends,
not as means only, and are thus secure against
wrong. " In other kinds, on the contrary, there is
no security against any form of wrong."

True friends are those who are of one mind with
one another. But to be of one mind with an other
is not merely to agree with his opinions. Such
agreement, e.g. on a scientific question, does not
necessarily lead on to friendship. On the other hand
(we might add), mere difference of opinion does not
estrange.* The kind of agreement and disagreement
which is important is that which springs from being
of the same or a different mind on " questions of the
public advantage, and on all that touches life."
Friendships based on agreement of this kind have
the promise of permanence just because what is just

* Carlyle agreed with his friend John Sterling " in everything but
opinion."

XII. FRIENDSHIP. iSl

and right is something fixed and permanent, and
those who seek after it " stand on the same ground."

It is natural that Aristotle should think mainly
in these last sections of the friendship of citizens.
Comradeship of this kind sprang naturally from the
soil of Greek political life, and in some states, e.g. in
Crete, was a recognized social institution. But he
has no intention of limiting the application of the
principle. He has already shown us that unity of
interest of any kind, even that of casual fellow-
passengers, may serve as a bond of friendship.
He here adds that permanent friendships can only
exist on the basis of interests which are permanent
and important. But he would not confine these to
politics. Art, science, religion, education, are examples
that will occur to us as fields in which the right
kind of unanimity may spring up, and by offering
security against the strain that individual differences
of taste and habit inevitably put on friendship, give
the promise of permanence.

It is moreover natural that Aristotle should think
mainly of the friendship of men to one another ; to
him this was the sole type of equal friendship. The
modern ideal of marriage as a lifelong friendship
between equals * is a conception altogether foreign to
Greek social conditions. Whilst, however, the modern
world cherishes this ideal, it cannot be said to have
realized the necessity of securing the conditions of

* On Aristotle's view of the friendship between husband and wife
the student should consult Ethics, VIII. c. x. § 4; c. xi. § 4 ; Politics,
I. cc. xii. and xiii.

1 82 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

44 true friendship " in these permanent alliances.
" Unanimity," in the sense of agreement as to im
portant questions of conduct and " all that touches life,"
is far from being generally accepted as the only true
foundation of happiness in marriage. And there can
be little doubt that it is just the want of some such
common interest in a noble end, that makes life in so
many cases one long discord.* Where there is no solid
interest to serve as a standard, all sense of proportion
or of relative value inevitably vanishes. The nervous
irritation begotten of trifles becomes a prominent feature,
lending colour to the cynic's saying that 4< small habits
in married life produce more misery than vices." While
some of the greatest writers have drawn attention to
this as the source of many secret tragedies in married
life, few have pointed with any clearness to the
remedy. To take a single example : Anna KarMna,
perhaps the most powerful novel of the kind, shows
with an unflinching realism the slow degradation
of the alliance founded on sexual passion alone.
Yet the same novel gives food for reflection in the
apparent acceptance by Count Tolstoi of petty strains
and irritations as necessary incidents in the everyday
intercourse even of the "happy marriage," and in his
evident conviction that mutual interest in children
is the sole harmonizer. To accept such an ideal
of a lifelong alliance is surely to despair of human
nature.

* See Note H.

XII. FRIENDSHIP. 183

§ 6. Egoism and Altruism.
[IX. c. viii.]

In no passage, however, is Aristotle more con
vincing than in his application of the above doctrine
to current moral problems. The first he deals with
(IX. c. vii.) has comparatively little interest for us,
since it has become generally accepted — in theory, at
least-— "that it is more blessed to give than to receive."
The philosophical gloss which he puts upon it — " The
man who confers a benefit sees his own handiwork
in the man who receives it ; he therefore loves it more
than the work loves its maker " — is chiefly interest
ing as an illustration of his general doctrine. The
second, however, is one that has never ceased to
exercise philosophers and practical men alike, viz. the
relation of self-love to love of others (IX. c. viii.).
The answer that is here given amounts to a
criticism of the popular antithesis between self and
others, with the view of showing that the self which
it is man's duty to love and seek to realize is the ^
self which includes others, and in which therefore the \
prima facie opposition has disappeared. This cannot
be otherwise if, as already proved, the end of man
consists in a system of activities which presupposes
not merely an aggregate of individuals, but an
organized society.

The value of this solution will become apparent if
we compare it with that of current Utilitarianism.

1 84 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

Starting with the popular antithesis, English ethical
writers have asked whether virtue consists in regard
for self, or regard for others. Various replies have
been given in the past. Thus the earlier school led
by Hobbes tended to resolve all conduct into a form
of self-regard. The later doctrine of Utilitarianism
resolved virtue into regard for others.* More recently
Mr. Herbert Spencer's attempt to " conciliate" these
two views has met with wide acceptance. The " con
ciliation " amounts to showing that, as a matter of
fact, there is a large and ever-widening area of conduct
in which a man can only attain what he must needs
desire, viz. the greatest pleasure, by taking into account
the similar desires of others.f It need hardly be
pointed out at this stage that this is no real solution
of the problem. It is merely a conspicuous case of
what the logicians call ignoratio elenchi. That the
way to the greatest happiness of individuals interpreted
in terms of pleasure lies de facto through consideration
of the happiness (in the same sense) of others, is no
answer to the question whether the larger life has
de jure a claim upon us. This question can only
be truly answered when we have come to see thati
the self which includes others is a truer or moreS
"natural" self than the self which excludes them. 1
But this involves just such a criticism of the
accepted antithesis as the teaching of Aristotle
supplies. So long as the popular English philosophy
refuses this better way, the problem must be for

* See Mill's Utilitarianism, c. ii.
t Data of Ethics ) cc. xi.-xiv.

XII. FRIENDSHIP. 185

Ethics, as Mr. L. Stephen says, what the squaring of
the circle is for Mathematics.

§ 7. Friendship in Modern Education.

Returning to the main function assigned by Plato
and Aristotle to Friendship in the development of
character, and comparing their view of it with our
modern ideas on the same subject, the contrast is at
first sight almost startling. It is not only that in
modern states there is no attempt such as was not
uncommon among the Greeks, and was advocated by
Plato, to regulate friendship in the interest of society
in general, but the subject is almost totally neglected
by teachers and educational writers. It is hardly going
too far to say that the element of personal attach
ment, especially among young people, has come to be
regarded in some quarters with suspicion.* Even so
enlightened a writer as Professor Baldwin seems to
suggest that parents and teachers should do their best
to prevent the formation of permanent friendships
among children. The reader of Aristotle's Ethics will
be inclined to regard this neglect as a great loss to the
theory of education, and to agree with Mr. Edward
Carpenter that those who carry it into practice " fling
on the dust-heap one of the noblest and most precious
elements in human nature." In contrast to the prevail
ing apathy (or worse) it is refreshing to read the same
writer's bold statement of his belief that "the more

* See Mr. Edward Carpenter's protest, "Affection in Education,"
International Journal of Ethics, July, 1899.

1 86 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

the matter is thought of, the clearer will it 'appear
that a healthy affection must in the end be the basis
of education." We may be permitted to add that if
what has already been said is true, the recognition of
this fact may be expected to open a way out of other
modern difficulties besides those of the schoolroom,
to which Mr. Carpenter particularly refers.

Meantime it may help in some degree to bring this
recognition about if, in conclusion, we note from the side
of theory that there is one line of thought, familiar
enough to the student of recent psychology, which may
form a meeting-ground of ancient and modern ideas.

In tracing the development of consciousness, modern
text-books lay stress on the growth of the idea of self
as one of the most important ideas which a child ac
quires. Various " factors " are mentioned as entering
into its formation — among others the social factor. The
child, it is pointed out, does not grow up by itself, but
as one among other selves, who re-act upon it in two
ways. In the first place, the persons who surround it
are a mirror in which it sees itself ; and in the second,
the actions of others, and especially those of intimate
friends, offer a copy by means of which, under pres
sure of the dominant instinct of imitation, the child's
consciousness of its own powers are developed.*
Without going further we may see that there is much
in this doctrine that reminds us of Aristotle. It
might indeed appear that we have here only an ex
tension to the consciousness of self in general of the

* See, for example, Professor Baldwin's Social and Ethical Interpre
tations in Mental Development, Bk.-I. c. i.

XII. FRIENDSHIP. 187

principle which Aristotle confines to the consciousness
of the moral self. There is, however, more in the
Aristotelian doctrine than a partial anticipation of a
popular modern, view. It contains suggestions which
go beyond and correct it in two essential particulars.
In the first place the ^//"-consciousness Aristotle is
thinking of is not one among other forms of con
sciousness, the "idea" of self not one among other
ideas. It is consciousness at its fullest development,
tlie idea which includes and gives their place to ail
other ideas. It is thus the end of all individual
development, not merely one of the elements in that
development. But, secondly, in emphasizing "commu
nity of life and the intercourse of word and thought "
as a factor in the development of self-consciousness,
Aristotle is thinking of something far more important
than imitation, conscious or unconscious. Imitation
is the mere reproduction of the actions of another.
Whether there is in normal human conduct any such
thing as imitation in this sense, or whether in any
action that can be properly called voluntary, there is
not normally an element of adaptation, i.e. a real
attempt to express one's self, accompanying the effort
to reproduce, we need not further discuss.* If there
be any such thing as imitation pure and simple, it is
of comparatively little educational importance, and
is certainly not what Aristotle has in view. He is
thinking throughout of the power of friendship toS
stimulate reciprocity of services rather than imitation I
of the actions of another. It is in respect of their

* See what has already been said on this subject, chapter vi.

188 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.XH.

reciprocity that the mutual services of friends re
produce in microcosm those which civic society at
large requires of us. What is claimed for friendship
(to repeat it once more) is that by suffusing the life
of ordinary social duty with the glow of feeling, it
imparts to it at once a new glory and a new quality
of transparency.

1 89 )

CHAPTER XIII.
PLEASURE.

" Pleasure is the unbought and unbuyable grace of life : the electric
spark, as it were, which flashes out at the point where the outgoing
line of action returns uporf itself and is just completing its redintegration
with self: it is the consciousness that the object which is presented by
natural causes, or which we have ourselves produced by an act of will,
is in harmony and co-operation with the subjective conditions and forces
of life which reveal themselves in our voluntary agency."

W. WALLACE.

§ I. The Two Discussions of Pleasure in the Ethics.

[Bk. VII. cc. xi.-xiv. ; Bk. X. cc. i.-v.]

ARISTOTLE'S Ethics contain two separate discussions
of Pleasure, one at the end of Book VI L, the other
at the beginning of Book X. Prima facie, the
doctrine in these two passages is different. In the
former, Aristotle seems to maintain that Pleasure is
the supreme good ; in the latter, to contest this opinion.
The passage that causes the chief difficulty will be found
in Book VII. c. xiii. § 2 : " There is no reason why
a certain kind of pleasure should not be the supreme
good, even though some kinds be bad, just as there
jsno reason wny a_certam kind ot knowledge should
not be, though some kinds be bad. Nay, perhaps we

190 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

ought rather to say that since every formed^cujty
admits of unimpeded exercise, it follows that whether
happiness be the exercise ot ail these laculties or~of
"some- one of them, that exercise must necessarily be
more desirable when unimpeded ; but unimpeded
exercise of faculty is pleasure : a certain kind of
pleasure, therefore, will be the supreme good, even
though most pleasures should turn out to be bad in
themselves." * Comparing this with the statement in
Book X. c. iii. § 13, we seem in the two books to have
contradictory views. In Book VII. the good is said
to be " a kind of pleasure ; " in Book X. " it seems
to be established that pleasure is not the good." As
a matter of fact the difference is much less than
appears, and is resolvable into the different senses in
which " pleasure" is taken. £n Book VII. the word
is_taken in its popular sense pf a concrete thingT_or
the actual exercise of a faculty ; in Book X. the
philosophical distinction is drawn between the activity
ifself and the pleasant feeling which is an attribute
of it — "asuperadded end like the grace of youth."
In the former sense Aristotle would allow — as who
but a fanatic would not ? — that the end may be
described as a form of pleasure. In the latter sense
such an admission would be contrary to the whole
teaching of the Ethics, and not merely to a casual
statement in Book X.f The extracts given below

* I have given Peters' translation to enable the English reader the
more easily to identify the passage.

t As Professor Stewart rightly says, the formula of VII. is "pleasure is
unimpeded exercise of faculty," that of X." pleasure perfects the exercise

xm- PLEASURE. ICjT

are taken from the tenth Book, which, in addition
to being the clearer and more philosophical, is the
earlier and more undoubtedly Aristotelian statement.
The discussion falls into three parts: ( i ) the
statement and criticism of current views ; (2) Aris
totle's view of the conditions and the effect ofjjleasure ;
(3) the application of his doctrine as a ground_of
explanation, (a) of the fac^hat_every_one desires
j)]easure ; (b) that pleasures differ in kind. We may
take these in their order.

§ 2. Theories as to the Relation of Pleasure to
the Good.

[X. cc. i. and iii.]

Two theories were current in Aristotle's time as to
the relation of pleasure to human life. The first (repre
sented by Eudoxus) was that pleasure is the good ; the
second (represented by Speusippus and the straiter
sect of the Platonists) that pleasure no less than pain
was an evil, and that the good consisted in freedom
from both.* The latter theory Aristotle rejects (i)
on the characteristic ground of the universality of the

of faculty" (op. clt. ii. p. 221). In what follows, however, he seems some
what to obscure the point. The difference between the Aristotelian
doctrine of Book VII. and that of the Hedonists is not that, according
to the one, " the Good (meaning the strenuous performance of the
highest duty) is Pleasure ;" according to the other, " Pleasure (meaning
the pleasure of sense) is the Good "—but that according to the former /}
the good life is a pleasant thing, according to the latter it is good ^(
because it is pleasant.

* Antisthenes the Cynic went further, and declared that he would
rather be mad than feel pleased.

IQ2 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

opposite opinion (c. ii. § 4) ; (2) because there are
good pleasures as well as bad ones (c. iii. § 10). The
former he rejects on the grounds (i) that there are
things which we desire for their own sake quite apart
from the pleasure that they bring — to wit : sight,
memory, knowledge, virtue (c. iii. § 12) ; (2) that
there are some states that we should not choose
however much pleasure they brought with them, thus
showing that we have another standard of preference
besides the amount of pleasure that an object brings
(c. iii. § 12).

It is characteristic of Aristotle that he seems here
to have the heresy of Speusippus chiefly in view.
It was the more repugnant to Greek sobriety, and at
the same time to the common sense of mankind. The
modern student, on the other hand, naturally turns
to the arguments which are here directed against the
hedonistic view as the more important part of these
criticisms. To the former of the two arguments that
are urged against it he will not be inclined to attach
much importance. Modern hedonism admits that we
seem to desire other things besides pleasure, but
explains this as the result of association. Desired
originally " as a means to happiness," they have come
to be desired "as a part of happiness." *

The latter argument stands on a different footing,
and has been constantly employed in our own time
as a proof that pleasures differ in quality, and that the
" quantity of pleasure " which actions bring inde
pendently of the source from which the pleasure is

* Mill's Utilitarianisim, p. 55.

XIII. PLEASURE. 193

derived, cannot, as the older hedonists held, be the
true standard by which we estimate their value.
There are two ways in which, from the hedonist point
of view, it may be met. We may either airily deny
with Bentham that pleasures do so differ — "one
pleasure is as good as another if there is as much of
it " — or w^ may take facts more seriously, and admit
that common sense is right in drawing a clear
distinction between kinds of pleasure. This, as is
well known, is the course that J. S. Mill adopts.
"Few human creatures," he says, echoing Aristotle's
statement, "would consent to be changed into any
of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest
allowance of a beast's pleasures ; no intelligent human
being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person
would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and
conscience would be selfish and base — even though
they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or
the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they
are with theirs." * It may, however, be questioned
whether, in thus endeavouring to extend hedonism to
cover the fact that Aristotle urges against it, Mill
has not ruined it as a consistent theory. He gets
over the difficulty himself by drawing a distinction
between happiness and content or satisfaction in the
well-known statement that " it is better to be a
human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied — better
to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And
if the fool or the pig is of a different opinion, it is
because they only know their own side of the

* Op. cit. p. 12.

O

194 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

question. The other party to the comparison knows
both sides." * But this is only to widen the breach
between his own theory and ordinary utilitarianism.
For according to the view here stated, happiness
consists in the activities that befit a human being,
satisfaction in the pleasure which beings undisturbed
by ideals obtain from living after their kind, and
Mill only stops short of Aristotle in appealing, not
to the form of universal life for which nature has
marked man out, but first to the unsupported authority
of "those who are equally acquainted with, and
equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both,"
and when this seems an insufficient explanation, to
the " sense of dignity which all human beings possess
in one form or other." f

-^ § 3. The Conditions of Pleasure.
[X. c. iv.]

In chapter iv. Aristotle makes a fresh start, and
proceeds to examine the nature of pleasure with the
view to a clearer statement of its relation to human
happiness. The first part of the discussion that
follows is naturally concerned with the conditions of

* Op. cit. p. 14.

t Extremes meet : the upholder of a " positive" philosophy is driven
back, first on authority and then on intuition. In denying that Mill
is here inconsistent with his own principles, Professor Stewart seems to
illustrate the amiable confusion between a man's character and his
opinions which Aristotle alludes to in c. ii. § i. Undoubtedly Mill's
"standard of conduct" was the public good. His theory, however,
was that public good was the greatest happiness of the greatest number,
and happiness to a consistent utilitarian means ultimately pleasure.

PLEASURE. 195

pleasure, the second with its effects. Aristotle's theory
on these subjects is best understood in connexion
with the stage that the analysis of pleasure had
reached in the theories current in his time.

It is difficult for us to attach any meaning to a
theory that identified pleasure with a " movement"
or "process" (X. c. Hi. § 4) ; but it was a distinct
achievement in the earlier thinkers to have got

o

beyond the crude materialism of ordinary thought.
A movement or process is at least an attribute of
concrete things, not a concrete thing or substance
itself.* The account, moreover, seemed to agree well
enough with the more obvious pleasures, such as
those that arise from satisfying mental and bodily
wants. From the definition of pleasure as a " process
of becoming " (ylvtais) it was only a step to the
theory that all pleasures are the effect of replenish
ment (iii. § 6), and to conceive of its essential con
dition as an antecedent pain or want.

Plato represents a great step in advance of these
earlier attempts at analysis.! (i) He rejects the_vievv
that pleasure is necessarily preceded by pain. ^There
are " unmixed " pleasures, such as those of knowledge,
beauty of form and colour, sound and smell. | (2) He
anticipates many of the distinctions we find in Aris
totle, e.g. that between pleasures which, as preceded

* If modern hedonists had clearly recognized this they would have
been saved much confusion. Bentham speaks of happiness or pleasure
as divisible into "lots."

t His theory is most fully worked out in the Philebus,

\ Philebus, 51 A.

196 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

by pain, are illusory inasmuch as they merely restore
the function to its normal state, andjthose pleasures
wKTch accompany the active discharge of function and
are pleasant in themselves. Especially he distin
guishes the pleasures of the wise as the only true
and unalloyed pleasures from all others as a mere
shadow of pleasure.* (3) Though accepting verbally
the account of pleasure as a process of becoming, and
^congratulating its authors~(perhaps the Cyrenaics),fjie
lays no stress _u2on_jtjjLnd^eerns throughout to be
conscious of its in adequacy ._

The ground was thus prepared for Aristotle's doc
trine. Like Plato he rejects the earlier theories of
" rr^vem^frT^ "and " replenishment," and on similar
grounds (X. c. iii. § 7). ^Like Plato also he distinguishes
pleasures :that are preceded by pain ajid want as only
accidentally pleasant_(VII. c. xii. § 2 ; c. xiv. § 4), from
thc^e..thaLa^CQmr^ ;

the pleasures^of the good man "as pleasures in the
truest _ sense," from those of the bad man as only
pleasant "in a secondary and partial sense" (X. c.
iii. § 8). The advance which he makes consists in
discarding the old terminology and fixing upon
unimpeded activity, whether of body or of soul,
whether preceded by actual obstruction or proceeding
from a state which lacks nothing of the fulness of
its nature, as the essential condition of pleasure (X.
c. iv. § 5 ; cp. VII. c. xii. § 3).

* Rep. 583 B. "A sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except
that of the wise is quite true and pure — all others are a shadow only."
t Philebus, 53 and 54 ; cp. Rep. IX. 583 E.

XIII. PLEASURE. 197

§ 4. Modern Criticism of Arts to ties Formula.

Reserving, meantime, the question of the signifi
cance of the above distinction between true and false
pleasures, we may try to bring this well-known
definition of pleasure into touch with modern thought
by noticing one or two of the objections that have been
brought against it by modern critics. The theory itself
is restated by Sir William Hamilton in his Lectures
on Metaphysics * in the form : " Pleasure is the con
comitant in every case where powers and objects are in
themselves perfect, and between which there subsists
a suitable relation." In another passage he expands
this into the proposition : " Pleasure is a reflex of
the spontaneous and unimpeded exertion of a power
of whose energy we are conscious. Pain is a reflex
of the overstrained or repressed exertion of such a
power." f Against the theory as so stated, J. S. Mill t
brings two objections: (i) The formula, however
suggestive when applied to pleasure connected with
activities of body and mind, fails when applied to
pains and pleasures in which the mind and body are
passive, as in most of the organic and a large portion
of the emotional. (2) It implies the fallacy of circle
in definition, seeing that there is "no criterion of
imperfect or perfect action except that it produces
pain or pleasure." Professor Stewart, who quotes this
criticism, seems to accept it as sound, while defending
* Vol. ii. P. 452 foil.

t Ibid. p. 440.

| Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, pp. 537 and
563.

198 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

Aristotle's formula against it on the ground that
it is directed to the practical purpose of showing
the relation of pleasure to happiness, not to giving
a psychological account of the nature of pleasure.
As Aristotle's view of the relation of pleasure to
happiness is expressly founded on an attempt "to
make the true nature of Pleasure plainer," this is
hardly satisfactory. There is, however, as a matter
of fact, no need to have recourse to any such apology.
The theory is untouched by Mill's criticisms.

I. With regard to the particular organic sensation
which Mill mentions, viz. sweetness, it is of course
true that Aristotle failed to anticipate the suggestions
of modern physiology in the analysis of the conditions
of the pleasure that normally accompanies it. On
such a subject any ancient theorist (and Mill himself
must here be reckoned among the ancients) could only
have the vaguest presentiment of the truth. The
advantage which Aristotle's formula has over others is
that it is at any rate quite consistent with the modern
physiological theory which represents organic pleasure
as the accompaniment of increased excitability of
sensory and motor areas, whether of the periphery or
of the cerebral cortex. * Whether this theory can be
substantiated with respect to the pleasures of taste
must be left to physiologists to determine, but it
implies a somewhat narrow view of the scope of
scientific hypothesis if, in the absence of a more satis
factory formula (and Mill himself suggests no other),

* Kiilpe, Outlines of Psychology, Eng. tr., pp. 246, 270 foil.

XIII. PLEASURE. 199

we may not hold to one that covers at least a large
portion of the phenomena.

With regard to pleasurable and painful emotions,.
Aristotle's theory is necessarily as defective from the
side of psychology as his account of organic pleasures
and pains is from the side of physiology. But here
also it is rather an extension than a total rejection of
the hint he gives that is required. According to
the view stated above, pleasure is the accompaniment
of the unimpeded action of organ or faculty in touch
with its object. In formulating this definition,
Aristotle clearly has in view such natural capacities
as sense perception. But his theory is equally
applicable to those acquired faculties which modern
psychology treats of under the head of " appercipient
masses." An important class of such faculties are
what we know as our " sentiments," consisting of
residua of ideas, feelings, motor impulses, etc., ex
perienced in connexion with a particular object or
group of objects, e.g. family, friends, country, etc.
Any " mass " so formed stands to its object as the
so-called natural faculties do to theirs. Like them
it may be latent ; or again, it may be called into active
operation by the presence of the object in thought or
reality. So understood, there is no difficulty in bringing
" emotional pleasure" under the Aristotelian formula.
Let the sentiment be affection for a friend. The
presence of the friend is in that case the stimulus under
which the system or faculty acts. It calls forth all
the pleasant associations of past intercourse — the old
jokes, the common friends, the whole golden age of

200 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

auld lang syne. We have literally here a flow of soul
—an unimpeded activity. Let it be, on the other
hand, merely the idea of our friend that occurs, and
with it the consciousness of some barrier to the active
exercise of the affection, e.g. distance or death, and
mingled often strangely enough with the pleasure of
the outgoing energy of affection is the pain that
comes from the hindrance that is imposed upon it. *
2. The second of the above objections is founded
on a simple misunderstanding of the Aristotelian
philosophy, according to which a firm distinction is
drawn between the activity and the attribute of the
activity, viz. the pleasure or the pain that accompanies
it. The activity is something objective, palpable,
measurable. It mixes itself with things : fails of its
object, or is successful. The pleasure is subjective,
impalpable, unmeasurable, remaining hidden in the
soul and standing to the successful activity as grace
and glow stand to youth, but is neither the thing
itself nor any true criterion of its real value in the
system of things. That Mill fails to acknowledge
this distinction, and insists that the criterion of the
value— the perfection or imperfection of the activity —
can only be the pleasure it brings, merely shows
how far the form of Utilitarianism which he has
rendered popular is from the truth that Aristotle has
here grasped.

* The reader should consult, in the light of Aristotle's formula, Mr.
Stout's excellent treatment of Pleasure and Pain, Analytic Psychology,
Bk. II. c. xii. ; Manual of Psychology, Bk. III. div. i. c. iii.

XIII. PLEASURE. 201

_^ § 5. The Effect of Pleasure.

[X. c. iv. §§6-ii ;c. v. §§3-5.]

In reply to those who taught that pleasure is
an obstruction to the higher activities of the soul,*
Aristotle draws a distinction between pleasure which
is proper and pleasure which is foreign to the activity,
maintaining that faculties are not impeded by the
pleasure proper to themselves. On the contrary, the
effect of this pleasure is to perfect the exercise_oJl
faculty. Hindrance can only come from foreign
pleasure.

There is perhaps no part of Aristotle's doctrine
that has been so emphatically endorsed by modern
theory as this account of the effect of pleasure.
From the side of physiology we now know that the
effect of pleasure in perfecting life is already fore
shadowed in its effect upon the physical organism—
the increased power of the voluntary muscles and of
the pulse-beats, and even the increased volume of the
limbs. On the other hand, it has been found that
pain diminishes the force of muscular action, weakens
the pulse, constricts the peripheral blood-vessels, and
so causes decrease of volume in the limbs.f It is only
a further application of the same principle when it is
pointed out that the expressive movements which
accompany joyful emotion are lively, expansive,
rhythmical ; those that accompany painful emotion,

* Ethics ; VII. c. xii. § 5, which should be compared with the sections
in X. c. iv.

t See Ktilpe, op. tit. pp. 245, 246.

202 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

loose, shrinking, spasmodic.* From the side of Ethics
we have already had occasion to notice (p. 76) that
a good action is none the worse for being done with
pleasure, but, on the contrary, is all the better.
It is now seen that this is only an instance of
the general law that pleasure, by causing efforts to
be continued or repeated, completes and perfects
them, while pain acts as a drag upon the activity.

" A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a ! "

While modern psychology thus confirms the account
that Aristotle here gives of the effect of pleasure
and pain, it indicates an important limitation of
the principle which it is important for practice to
observe. Besides their general effect in respectively
completing and obstructing the exercise of faculty—
and, indeed, because of it — pleasure and pain under
particular circumstances seem to have quite other and
contrary effects. As is well known, that to which
an organism has become accustomed is pleasant.
The organism will thus be apt to continue or repeat
the actions which are found to be pleasant. In this
way pleasure tends to act as a conservative force
keeping organisms in a round of familiar and stereo
typed reactions. Pain, on the other hand, being a
sign of maladjustment to object or environment, tends
to throw the organism into a state of reaction against
the cause of irritation, and so acts as a stimulant to
movement and change. Where such a change is

* Professor Ward's article on " Psychology," Encycl. Brit.> vol. xx.
p. 68.

XIII. PLEASURE. 203

required by the health or life of the organism, pleasure
will thus act in the direction of imperfect adjust
ment — pain in the direction of a fuller and completer
life. Transferring this principle to human life, the
essence of which is aspiration and progress through
more or less painful effort, it is clear that the pleasure
we take in the exercise of already acquired powers
may tempt us to rest content with present achieve
ments, and thus be a bar to progress.

"Let us alone — what pleasure can we have
To war with evil ? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave ?
Give us long rest or death — dark death or dreamful ease."

On the other hand, the pain of impeded effort,
unfulfilled aspiration, will often act as a stimulant to
energy, and become the source of progressively com
pleted powers.

" Still, 'tis the check that gives the leap its lift."

The moral of this qualification of the Aristotelian
doctrine is not that we should revert to the theory
which Aristotle has once for all disposed of— that
pleasure is by its nature evil — but that we should hold
more firmly to the doctrine which he has done more
than any other writer to establish, viz. that pleasure,
though an excellent test of the partial realization of
the self, can never be taken as a sufficient guide to the
particular mode of activity which is at the moment
desirable. The nature of things offers no guarantee
that the course which is the most truly desirable is
that which is in the line of the least resistance or

204 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

the greatest pleasure. On the contrary, the fact that
what is truly desirable is progress towards the fuller
realization of a self which is never completely what
it has in it to be, is sufficient proof that an element
of pain will always mingle with human effort, and
that no ideal can be more delusive, either from the
theoretical or the practical side, than that of a com
pletely friction less life.

§ 6. Applications of the above Theory.

[X. c. iv. §§ 10 and n ; c. v. §§ 6-1 1.]

In the succeeding sections the theory of pleasure,
as already stated, is applied to explain (a) the fact
that every one desires pleasure, and (b) the distinction
between true and false pleasure.

-* (a) As pleasure, then, is a necessary accompaniment
of the activities which constitute life, and as these
activities are an object of desire to all men, it is easy
to see how all men come to desire pleasure. True,
Aristotle seems to leave it still an open question
" whether we choose life for the sake of pleasure, or
pleasure for the sake of life." But, after what has
been already said, this need not cause any difficulty.
The discussion throughout has proceeded upon the
assumption that what all men desire and make for
is life itself, and not any adjunct of life. Their
various energies have their source in instincts and
impulses directing them to one or other of the elements
of life, and acting with peremptory force before any
experience of pleasure resulting from their satisfaction.

PLEASURE. 205

Pleasure is merely the sign that one or other of these
has attained its object, and that we have lived to
purpose. The doctrine that it is pleasure, or, more
correctly, the idea of pleasure, which normally stimu
lates to action is, as Wallace says,* on a par with
the converse doctrine that it is present uneasiness of
desire which determines to voluntary action ; and this,
as we have seen, is incompatible with Aristotle's view
that there are activities which are preceded by no
feeling of want or pain.

•*.(#) In view of the above theory of pleasure we can
further understand how pleasures differ from one
another in worth. According to our theory, activities
are not valuable because they produce pleasure, but
pleasure is valuable according to the kind of activity
which it accompanies. If the question is put where
we are to look for the standard of activity, and there
fore of pleasure, we are referred to the good man
(c. v. § 10). His pleasures are the only ones that are
pleasant in the true and proper sense of the word.
Taken by themselves these words might seem to be
a mere evasion, and to carry us no further than the
Utilitarian appeal to the authority of the man who
has had experience of both kinds.j Taken, however,
in connexion with all that has already been said of
the good man as the individual embodiment of the
system of life to which man's true nature points, it
will be seen to be more than this. The true standard
is not the individual who chances for the moment to

* Lectures and Essays, p. 347.
t See p. 193 foil, above.

206 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.

embody this order, but the order itself as it reveals
itself to reason through him. Let us recall what we
have already implied with respect to the activities of
such a man. In analyzing human activity we have
already had occasion to note that just because it .is
human activity it is not the activity of a mere
individual. It has reference at every point to the
larger whole in which the true life of the individual
man is to be sought. Every act, therefore, however
narrow its apparent scope, really points beyond its
immediate object to the wider life as to the context
which gives it meaning.* We might even say that
it is only in virtue of its relation to this wider life
that it is a human act at all. Foolish and wicked
actions are those whose form as issuing from a
human will is contradicted by the narrowness and
selfishness of their actual scope. Such actions are
untrue in the sense that they fail to express what as
human actions they purport to express, viz. the universal
order which, though belied in their execution, is
implied in their form as actions of the human will.
Wise and good action, on the other hand, is the
action in which what is actually willed, viz. the
conduct required by the permanent structure of
society, is in harmony with the form of will as
essentially social. Representing the true as opposed
to the apparent will, such actions may be said to be
themselves true and real.

* For an admirable statement of this truth in modem philosophy, see •
Dr. Bosanquet's essay on " The Reality of the General Will " in Aspects
of the Social Problem.

xm- PLEASURE. 207

We have only to translate what has just been said
into terms of feeling to understand what Aristotle
means by true and false pleasures. Just as no man,
however selfish he may be, can really live to himself,
so no man can be pleased to himself. " If we set aside
for the moment abnormal cases, we may say that all
pleasures have a social element, and that they cease
to be real pleasures except in so far as they are corre
lated to the consciousness of other men. The pleasures
of ambition, power, love, severally, are complete
only when they are responded to by the feelings of
others." ' Our pleasures, like our actions, reflect our
social nature, and the standard of pleasure, as the
standard of action, is that they should reflect it in
its completeness. It is true that they, like our actions,
begin in the narrow circle of the individual soul ;
they are our pleasures, signs, as we have seen, that
some circumstance is momentarily in harmony with
our organs or faculties. But they, like our actions,
have an outlook on an experience wider than our own.
They imply relations to a larger life. Wisdom consists
in permitting our momentary impulses to seek what
is pleasant, to be moulded and deepened by the larger
experience of which they are a part. Error and
delusion begin when we turn a deaf ear to the
message they bring of this larger life, and hear only
what they tell us of the moment, so mistaking a
feeling which has truth and reality only in a context,
for a thing desirable in itself. How this larger
experience can be made a reality to the individual

* Wallace's Lectures and Essays, p. 359.

208 CHAPTERS FROM ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. CHAP.XIII.

soul and act from the outset as a corrective to the
natural tendency to mistake the momentary pleasure
for the whole of happiness, is the problem of moral
education. .^Aristotle's contribution to its solution_in
these sections on Pleasure is to warn us against
"Q uixotic"EbstiIity to all forms of it on the one hand,
alTcI^TndiscTifninate approval oflt as necessarily^and
in its own nature good, on the other.

SELECTED PASSAGES

FROM THE

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS

SELECTED PASSAGES

FROM THE

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS.*

i.

THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS.

[NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. — i. i.] NOT only all arts and
sciences but all actions directed by choice aim at some good.
And so the Good has been well defined as the end at which
all things aim. But there is a distinction among the ends
themselves. Some consist in the activities, others in some
ulterior result, and where the latter is the case the results
are of greater value than the activities which produce them.
Now, as there are numerous kinds of actions and numerous
arts and sciences, there are also numerous ends. Thus the

* Three works associated with Aristotle's name and entitled Ethics
have come down to us: known respectively as the "Nicomachean,"
the "Eudemian" and the "Greater." The older view was that the
last, which, in spite of its name, is much the shortest of the three,
was the original work of which the others were later expansions. This
is now given up and the first accepted as probably in great part actually
written by Aristotle, the two latter being restatements of the Aristotelian
doctrine by other hands. It derives its title from the son to whom
the task of editing his father's notes was assigned.

212 NICOMACIIEAN ETHICS. I. I.

end of the healing art is health, of shipbuilding — ships,

4 of strategy — victory, of economy — wealth. But when a
number of them fall under some single art or science, as
the manufacture of bridles and other accoutrements falls
under horsemanship, this again, together with all warlike
accomplishments, under generalship, and so on, the end of
the master art is more desirable than those of the subordinate
faculties, as it is that for the sake of which the others are

5 pursued. And this is equally true whether we suppose the
end to consist in the mere exercise of faculty or in some
ulterior result as in the cases just mentioned.

1 [ii.] If, then, in the field of conduct there is some one
end which we desire for its own sake, other things being
desired because they contribute to it, and if we do not
choose everything on account of something else, for this
would go on to infinity and leave our desires without
point or purpose, clearly this must be the Chief Good, being

2 the best of all things. And surely to know what this Good is,
is of some practical importance, for in that case we shall
be as archers shooting at a definite mark, and shall be more

3 likely to do what is right. This being so, we must try to
indicate roughly what it is and to which of the sciences it
belongs.

4 Now, it would seem to belong to the science which
is supreme over all the others and best corresponds to our

5 idea of a master science. But the science of politics
or citizenship clearly answers to this description, for it

6 prescribes what sciences are needed by a state, which of
them each of the citizens shall be taught, and up to what
point. Moreover, we find that even the studies that are
held in highest repute, such as economics and oratory, are

7 subordinate to it. Seeing, then, that it employs the services
of all the other sciences, and, furthermore, defines what the

I-11- THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. 213

citizens are to do and what they are to refrain from doing,
the end which this science sets itself will embrace all other
ends and will be, in fact, the Good of Man. And even 8
though this is the same for individuals and communities, yet
the good of the community is grander and more sufficing to
lay hold of and to keep. For though we may often rest
satisfied with merely individual good, yet the good of a
nation or a state is nobler and more divine. This, then, is
the scope of our study which we shall best describe as the
science of politics.

[iii.] In pursuing tm's study we shall have done enough if i
we attain such precision as the subject permits of. For it is a
mistake to look for the same exactness in all kinds of reason
ing, just as it would be in all kinds of manufacture. Nobility 2
and justice, which are the subject-matter of the science of
politics, appear in many forms, and are the subject of
much uncertainty. So much is this the case that they are
sometimes thought to be only conventional and not natural
distinctions. There is a similar uncertainty about things 3
which are good in themselves because of the harm they
sometimes do. For some men have been ruined by riches ;
others have lost their lives by courage. We must be satisfied, 4
therefore, in reasoning upon these subjects, to give only a
rough sketch of the truth, and when our premises are not
universal laws but statements of what generally or probably
occurs, to draw only probable conclusions. In the same
spirit the reader must accept all that is here stated, for no
one who pretends to education will look for more exactness
in the treatment of any subject than the nature of the subject
admits of. To ask mathematical demonstrations from an
orator is as absurd as to accept probable reasoning from a
mathematician. As a matter of fact, a man has a fine sense 5
for subjects with which he is familiar, and in these he is a

214 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. I. in.

good critic. This is true of the man of special culture in
respect to his speciality, and in respect to things in general
of the man of general culture. Hence it is that young men
are not as a rule good students of moral philosophy. For
here the foundation as well as our subject-matter is moral
experience, which is precisely what is wanting in youth.
Young men, moreover, are apt to be swayed by passion,
and to reap little profit from a study the object of which
is not merely knowledge but conduct. And this holds of
those who are young in character as well as in years.
For the defect is not a matter of time, but consists in their
living according to passion and following the objects which
passion suggests. In the case of such persons, as in the
case of the intemperate man, knowledge is of little avail.
Those, on the other hand, whose actions and desires are
under the control of reason, may expect to benefit consider
ably from the theoretic study of these subjects,

( 215 )

II.

OPINIONS AS TO THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS.

[i. iv.] To return : inasmuch as all science and action aims at i
some good, what is it that is the aim of the science of politics ?
in other words, what is the highest good ? About the name 2
there is no disagreement. Both educated and uneducated
alike declare that it is Happiness, taking Happiness as
equivalent to living and doing well. But here agreement
ends, for when they come to define happiness the multitude
say one thing, philosophers another. The mass of mankind 3
take it to be some palpable and obvious good, such as pleasure,
wealth, and honour, though they are not agreed as to which.
You will find even the same man of a different mind at
different times. After an illness he will say it is health, when
in poverty, riches ; at other times, conscious how little he
knows, he is ready to defer to those who declare it to be
some splendid quality which passes their understanding.
Some philosophers, again, think that besides the several good
things there is some absolute good which is the cause of
their goodness.

As it would serve no purpose to examine all the various 4
views that have been held on the subject, it will be sufficient
to select those theories of life which are most popular, or
recommend themselves to thinkers.

We must, however, recollect that there is a distinction 5

2l6 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. I. iv.

between theories that take universal principles as their
starting-point and proceed deductively, and those that start
from particulars and proceed inductively to universals ; and
Plato was right in raising the question whether the true
method was from principles or to principles, just as one
might ask whether in the racecourse the race ought to be
from the starting-point to the boundary, or vice versa. We
shall agree, I think, that we must start from the known.
But there is an ambiguity here: we may mean what is
known to the individual or what is known in the strict
sense of the term.

Now, we may safely say that we, at least, must start
from individual experience. And this is why the student of
the good and justice, and of politics generally, if he is going
to make anything of the subject, must himself have a good
character. For our data here are moral judgments, and
if a man knows what it is right to do he does not require a
formal reason. Such persons either know the reason of their
actions, or if they do not they can easily be got to accept it
when it is pointed out to them. On the other hand, if a
man has neither kind of knowledge he may take to heart
the lines of Hesiod —

" He is the best of them all who knoweth all with his reason.
He, too, surely is good who lendeth ah ear to good counsel.
But where is the use of the wight who, knowing naught of himself,

recks
Naught of the word of a friend, nor lendeth an ear to advisers ? "

[v.j Let us now resume the discussion at the point from
which we digressed. We can easily understand how the
majority of mankind and people who want refinement, in
fluenced by the lives they lead themselves, hold that Happi
ness or the Good is pleasure, and accordingly accept the life

!• v- OPINIONS ON HAPPINESS. 2 1/

of pleasure as their ideal. For there are three lives which 2
stand out conspicuously — the life of pleasure, the political
life, and the life of reflection. The mass of mankind, like 3
the slaves that they are, show a marked preference for the
life of brute beasts. And this opinion has received attention
because many of those in higher station are of the same
mind as Sardanapalus.* Educated people, on the other 4
hand, with a practical turn, prefer honour, which, I suppose,
is the end of the political life. But honour is too superficial
an attribute to be the good we are in search of, depending,
as it appears to do, rather on those who give than on those
who receive it ; whereas we divine the good to be something
proper to a man which cannot easily be taken away from
him. Moreover, a man seems to pursue honour in order to 5
obtain the assurance of his own excellence, for he seeks to
win the respect of men of sense and of those who know
him, which means that he wishes to be honoured for his
virtues. So that it is obvious that, in his view at least,
virtue is higher than honour, and perhaps one ought to say 6
that it is virtue which is the real aim of the political life.
But even virtue and goodness are touched with imperfection,
inasmuch as a man might have all the virtues and yet be
asleep or fail to achieve anything all his life. Such a person,
moreover, may suffer the greatest misfortunes, and no one in
this case would call him happy except for argument's sake.
The third life is the life of thought — the discussion of which 7
I shall reserve. As for the money-making life, it is some- 8
thing quite contrary to nature, and wealth is clearly not the
good of which we are in search. For it is only useful as a

* Asshur-bani-pal, who is said to have had verses inscribed on his
tomb in which he declared, "All that I ate upon earth, all things that
I boasted enjoying | All else leaving behind, I retain an abiding
possession,"

2l8 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. L v.

means to something else, and for this reason there is less to
be said for it than for the ends mentioned above, which at
any rate are desired for their own sakes. But they, too, are
unsatisfactory, in spite of all the arguments that have been
expended on them. . . .

[vii.] Let us try to make this clearer. Seeing that
there are many ends, and that some of them are chosen merely
as means — e.g. wealth, flutes, and generally all instruments
and tools — it is clear that all ends are not equally final and
perfect. But the best of all must be something final in this
sense. Accordingly, if there is only one final end this will be
what we are in search of ; if there are more than one, then it
will be the most final of them. But we call that which is
desired for its own sake more "final" than that which is desired
as a means to something else, and that which is never chosen
as a means than that which is chosen both as an end and as
a means ; and therefore we call that absolutely final and
perfect which is always chosen as an end in itself, and never
as a means. And this seems to be pre-eminently the
character of Happiness. For we always choose it for its own
sake, and never for anything else ; whereas honour and
pleasure and intelligence, together with every other excellent
quality, we choose, partly it is true, on their own account
(for we should choose them even although they brought no
further result), but partly also for the sake of the happiness,
which we suppose that they will bring. But no one chooses
Happiness for the sake of such things as these, nor for the
sake of anything else at all. And we reach the same result
if we take self-sufficiency as our test. For the final good
must be self-sufficient. By this we do not mean that it
makes the man who lives a solitary life sufficient for himself.
That is impossible. Happiness implies parents, children,
wife, and, in short, friends and fellow-citizens, since man is

I. viz. OPINIONS ON HAPPINESS. 219

by nature a citizen. We must indeed draw a line some
where, for if we are to include grandparents and ancestors
and friends of friends there will be no end to it. But we
may leave this meantime, and define the self-sufficient as
that which of itself makes life desirable and in need of
nothing. And this is precisely what Happiness does.

Moreover, Happiness is itself the most desirable thing in
the world ; but in calling it the most desirable of all goods
we must not be understood to imply that it is one among
others. If we were to do so we should have to suppose
that it is rendered more desirable by the addition of even
the least of goods, since addition increases the amount,
and of two goods the greater is always the more desirable.
Happiness, then, as the end of all action is something final
and self-sufficing.

220 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. I. vn.

III.

THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS.

9 [i. vii.] BUT it may perhaps t>e said that every one is
agreed that Happiness is the best of all things : what we

10 require is a clearer definition of its nature. In order to answer
the question, What is Happiness ? we must first ask another :
What is the proper function of man ? For just as goodness
and excellence in a piper or a sculptor, or the practiser of any
art, and generally in every one who has any function or busi
ness in the world consists in the performance of this function,
so the good of man will be found to consist in the per-

1 1 formance of his function, if, so be, he has one. But surely if
a carpenter or a shoemaker has each a work and business of
his own, we cannot suppose that man has none. Just as the
eye, the hand, and the foot, and generally each part of the
body has a function of its own, surely the man himself must

12 have some function over and above all these. What is this
function? Clearly it is not mere life; for life he has in
common even with the plants, and what we are in search
of is something peculiar to man. We must therefore set
aside the life which consists in mere nutrition and growth.
Above this comes the life of sense. But this also he shares

13 with horses and cattle and every kind of animal. There
remains only the life of a being who possesses reason and
manifests himself in conduct. And as the rational life may

I. vii. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 221

be understood in two senses, either as a state or as the
active exercise of function, we must take it in the latter, as
this seems to be its more proper sense. Man's function, then, 14
is an activity of the soul determining itself rationally, or at
any rate rationally determined. But what we call the function
of a man in any profession, and the function of the man who
is good at that profession, are generically the same, e.g. of a
harper and of a good harper. And this holds throughout, only
that in the latter case we add a reference to a man's superior
skill in his work, and say that to harp being the function of
the harper, to harp well is the function of the good harper.
This being so, we may define the good of man as an activity 1 5
of the soul in accordance with excellence, or if there are several
kinds, according to the best and most consummate form of
excellence. To which we must add in a full term of years, for 16
as one swallow or one warm day does not make Spring, so a
single day or a short time of happiness does not make a man
blessed or happy. This, then, may stand for a rough outline 1 7
of the Good. For it is well to begin with a rough sketch
the details of which we may afterwards proceed to fill
in. . . .

[viii.] But before proceeding to do so, it will be well to i
examine the result at which we have so far arrived, not only
as a conclusion from our data, but also in the light of the
opinions that are held upon the subject. For if a thing be
true, common facts will readily fall into line, but if it be
false, they will soon show themselves at variance with it.

Applying this to the question before us we find that good 2
things have been divided into three kinds : so-called
external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul.
And of these the last are commonly said to be goods in the
strictest and best sense. Now, conduct and all the activities
of the soul may be said to be goods of the soul. So that

222 NlCOMACHEAN ETHICS. 1. vili.

this classification, which is an ancient one, and has been

3 approved by philosophers, supports our definition. Indeed, it
would be enough to say that the end consists in a species of
conduct and in the performance of function to secure the
support of this opinion ; for such a statement brings the end
within the class goods of the soul, and excludes it from

4 that of external goods. Again, our definition agrees with the
popular saying that the happy man lives well and fares well,
for we may say that in our own view happiness is good life

5 and welfare. Further, the various things that people look
for in happiness will be found to be provided for by our

6 definition. For some claim that it is virtue or excellence,
others wisdom and prudence, others philosophy; others,
again, hold it to be all of these, or some one of them with
pleasure, either as an essential element or as a natural
accompaniment, added to it. Others finally include also

7 outward prosperity in the account. Now, some of these
opinions have the support of numbers and of antiquity;
others, again, are the opinions of a few distinguished men.
And it is unreasonable to suppose that both are wholly
wrong : it is more likely that in some one particular at
least, if not in most, both the multitude and the philo-

8 sophers are right. Our definition, then, agrees in the first
place with the view that good is excellence, or some
form of excellence. For " exercise of function in accord-

9 ance with excellence" is itself an excellence. But it
makes no little difference whether we take the good as con
sisting in possession or in use, in a mere habit or in the
active exercise of faculty. For the habit may be present but
produce no good result, e.g. when a man is asleep or other
wise idle. But this is impossible in the case of the active
exercise of virtue, which necessarily realizes itself in actions
and in good actions. And just as at the Olympic games it

I. viii. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 223

is the fairest and the strongest, not of those who are present
but of those who contest the prize, that are crowned (for
only such are victors], so it is those who not only have all
the virtues, but who manifest them in action, who win the
high prize of life. Again, the life of such men is pleasant 10
in itself. For pleasure is of the soul, and each man finds
pleasure in that which his soul desires : the lover of horses
in horses, the lover of sights in spectacles, and so on. In
the same way the lover of justice finds pleasure in acts of
justice, and generally the lover of excellence in all that is
excellent. It is true, indeed, that the pleasures of the n
multitude conflict with one another, the reason being that
they are not naturally and essentially pleasant; but the
pleasures of the man who loves what is noble are naturally
pleasant, and seeing that manifestations of excellence are
naturally pleasant they must be pleasant in themselves as well
as to him. His life, therefore, does not require the addition 1 2
of pleasure as a mere appendage, but has pleasure in itself.
We might even say that no one is good who does not take
pleasure in the works of goodness ; for we should not call a
man just unless he took pleasure in doing justice, nor
liberal who did not take pleasure in acts of liberality, and
similarly with the other virtues. If this is so, virtuous action 13
must be pleasant in itself. Again, it is good and beautiful,
and that in the highest degree, at least if we are to trust the
judgment of good men, for this is their judgment upon it.
Happiness, then, we may take it, is the best, the loveliest, 14
and the pleasantest thing in the world. And these are not
separated as in the Delian inscription —

" Fairest of all is the justest, the best is the health of the whole. Yet
Sweetest hath nature decreed it to win what the soul hath desired,"

For all these are properties of the best activities, and our

224 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. I. vm.

definition identifies happiness with these or with the best of
them.

15 Yet it would seem that external goods are also requisite
in the sense we have explained. For as it is impossible,
or at any rate difficult, to play a noble part without the
proper equipment, so there are many things that can be
done only through the instrumentality of friends and wealth

1 6 and political influence. Moreover, there are some things
the absence of which casts a stain upon perfect happiness,
e.g. birth, fine children, good looks. For the man who
is positively ugly, or who is unfortunate in his parents,
or solitary and childless, is not likely to attain complete
happiness ; still less the man whose children or friends turn
out altogether bad, or who has lost the good ones he once

1 7 had. As we have said, then, the happy man seems to require
a degree of the kind of prosperity just described. And this
is why some theorists have identified happiness with good
fortune, just as others have identified it with excellence.

1 [ix.] This, too, is why people have been led to ask whether
happiness is the result of instruction or of habit, or of train
ing of any other kind, or whether it is not rather a gift
bestowed on certain favoured persons by God or by fortune.

2 In reply to this we may admit that if God has bestowed
any gift upon mortal man we might reasonably suppose
that happiness is such a gift, inasmuch as it is the best of

3 human possessions. Perhaps, however, we may leave this
question as falling within the province of another branch of
study. For even although happiness is not a heaven-sent
gift, but is the natural consequence of virtue, and of a special
form of instruction or training, it may yet very well be one
of the divinest things. For the prize of virtue and the best
of all possible ends is surely something blessed and divine.

4 This would explain, too, the admitted fact that happiness is

I. ix. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS. 225

not confined to a select few, but is common to many, seeing
that it is open to all, who are not incapacitated for virtue,
to attain it by study and diligent application. Moreover, if it 5
is better that happiness should be attained in this way rather
than by chance, it is reasonable to suppose that it is so,
since the products of organic nature reach the highest
perfection possible to them. And the same is true of art 6
and every other steady principle of causation, a fortiori of
the noblest principle of all. And, indeed, it surely would
be absurd to entrust the greatest and best of all to the
operation of chance.

But our definition itself throws light upon this question. 7
For we defined happiness as an activity of the soul in
accordance with excellence of a certain definite kind;
dividing all other goods into those that are necessary as
conditions of happiness, arid those that are useful as aids
and instruments. Now, these conclusions agree with what 8
we said at the outset. For we there laid it down that
political science sets before itself the highest of all aims,
and makes it its chief business to produce a certain definite
character in the citizens, i.e. to make them good and ready
for noble actions. We are therefore right in refusing to call 9
an ox or a horse or any other of the lower animals happy.
For none of these is able to share in this kind of activity.
For the same reason not even children can be happy, seeing 10
that their age prevents them from taking part in such a life.
If we call them happy it is only proleptically. For as
we have already said, happiness requires not only perfect
excellence, but a full term of years wherein to exercise
it. For our life is exposed to many changes, and to all 1 1
sorts of chances, and one who has been very prosperous
may meet with great misfortunes in old age, as did Priam
in the tale of Troy ; nor could one who has fallen upon

Q

226 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. I. ix.

misfortunes of this kind, and perished miserably, be called
happy.

i [x.] Are we, then, it may be asked, to call no man happy
till he dies, but, as Solon enjoins, await the end? . . . This

7 could not be maintained. For surely it would be absurd
if when a man is happy we should refuse to say so through
not wishing to call the living happy, or because of the changes
to which life is subject, and because we conceive of happiness
as something stable and relatively unchangeable, whereas
the fortunes of one and the same individual often follow

8 cycles of good and bad. It is clear that if we were to be
guided by a man's fortune we should call the same man
happy and miserable over and over again, giving to happiness

9 a chameleon form and founding it on sand. Is it not,
therefore, better wholly to refuse to take fortune as our
guide, seeing that it is not fortune that is decisive as to weal
or woe? It is true, indeed, as we have said, that good
fortune is needed to complete man's life; but it is the
excellent performance of his function that is the sovereign
cause of happiness, and the opposite of its absence. And
this view is further confirmed by the very difficulty we have

10 been discussing. For no work of man's hands is so stable as
the excellent performance of function, than which even the
sciences themselves seem to be less abiding. Moreover, of
all its various forms, those are the stablest which are the
highest, for it is in these that the truly happy experience
the most vivid and sustained consciousness of life. And

11 this is why we do not forget them. The happy man,
therefore, will have the required degree of stability, and will
remain happy all his life. For he will be occupied constantly,
or as constantly as possible, with actions and thoughts that
are great and good, and will accept whatever befalls in the
noblest spirit— everywhere and in all things acting up to the

I. x. THE ELEMENTS OF HAPPINESS.

character of a truly good man, " foursquare and without a
flaw." Granting, then, that the dispensations of chance are 12
many, some great and some small, it is manifest that the
small things, whether good or bad, are of no weight in the
scale of life ; but that great ones when numerous will, if they
are good, make life happier, since they tend to give grace to
life and the use of them calls forth great and noble qualities,
but if they be evil they mar and deface happiness, inasmuch
as they bring pain with them, and frequently obstruct the
exercise of function. And yet even here a man's nobility
of character will shine out in the calm endurance with which
he meets a multitude of great misfortunes, not through
insensibility, but through nobility and greatness of soul.

But if, as we have said, a man's activities are the determin- 13
ing condition of his life, no one who is truly happy can ever
become miserable, since he will never do what is hateful and
base. For we hold that the truly good and wise man bears
every kind of fortune with becoming dignity, and will always
make the best of the circumstances, just as the good general
will make the most of the troops at his command, and the
shoemaker the best shoe that can be made out of the leather
that is in stock, and so on with all the other crafts. And if 14
this be so, the happy man will never become miserable,
though we cannot call him blessed if he suffers the fortune
of Priam. . . .

We may conclude, then, with the following definition : 1 5
the happy man is he who manifests the highest excellence
or virtue in living energy, and is duly furnished with
external goods, not for any chance period of time, but for a
full term of years. To which perhaps we should add, who
lives so throughout and dies as he has lived ; for the future
is veiled from us, but happiness we assume to be the end,
and to be everywhere and in all things final and complete.

228 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. T. xm.

IV.
THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS.

[i. xiii.] SINCE, then, happiness is an activity of the soul,
in accordance with perfect virtue or excellence, we must
now consider what excellence is. For this perhaps will
help us to understand better what happiness is. The true
statesman seems to be chiefly concerned with virtue ; for he
wishes to make the citizens good and law-abiding, as we
see, for example, in the case of the Cretan and Spartan and
other such legislators. And if this inquiry belongs to political
science, it is clear that it falls within the scope of our
original object.

Our subject is, of course, human excellence or virtue; for
it is human good and human happiness which we set out to
investigate. And by human excellence we mean not that of
the body, but that of the soul j happiness being, as we have
seen, an activity of the soul. And if this be so, clearly the
statesman ought to understand something about the nature
of the soul (just as the physician who makes a speciality of
the eye ought to know something of the body as a whole),
all the more so as Politics is a higher study than Medicine.
And, indeed, the best physicians devote a great deal of time
to physiological study. In the same way, then, the
student of Politics must make a special study of psychology.

I. xrii. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 22Q

He must not, however, forget the purpose he has in view
nor pursue the subject further than this requires. For to
carry it further involves unnecessary labour. The subject 9
has been discussed elsewhere * in sufficient detail, and we
may accept the results we there reached.

Thus we saw that the soul has two parts— an irrational
and a rational. Whether these are separate, like the parts 10
of the body and other divisible things, or are only separable
in thought — being inseparable, in fact, like the convex and
the concave of a circle — we need not now inquire.
Of the irrational element, again, one part, viz. the principle 1 1
of nourishment and growth, is common to all living
things, plants as well as animals. For we may be certain
that it is the same vital principle which manifests itself
throughout in every organic thing, from the embryo up
to the highest living forms, as it is more reasonable to
suppose that this is so than that there is anywhere a saltiis
in nature. The excellence of this principle, then, is plainly 12
one that may be shared by all organic things, and is not
peculiar to man. And this is confirmed by the fact that
this part or faculty of the soul appears to be most active in
sleep, when the difference between good and bad men is
of least account, explaining the saying that during the half
of life there is no difference between the happy and the
miserable. Which is natural enough, for in sleep those 13
functions of the soul in respect to which we call it good
or bad are latent, except in so far as faint stimuli from the
senses penetrate consciousness and make the dreams of
good men better than those of ordinary people. We 14
need not follow this further, but may dismiss the nutritive
principle, whose excellence is not distinctive of our humanity.

1 The reference is not apparently to a written, or at least to any
extant work of Aristotle.

230 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. I. xm.

15 There seems, however, to be another element of the soul
which is irrational, and yet which in a certain sense partakes
of reason. For we praise the reason or the rational part of
the soul, both in the continent and in the incontinent man,
inasmuch as it exhorts them to take the course which is
right and for the best. Yet there is clearly another and
opposite principle in them, which is at war with reason, and
resists it. For, just as a paralyzed limb is carried to the
left when the patient wishes to move it to the right, so in
the soul of the incontinent, their impulses run counter to

1 6 reason. The difference is that, whereas in the case of the
body we see the refractory member, in the case of the soul
it is invisible. None the less must we consider that there is
an element in the soul which is opposed to reason, and

17 resists it, though in what sense it is distinct from reason we
need not here inquire. Yet even this, as we have said,
seems to share in reason. In the continent man, at any
rate, it obeys reason; while in the man of perfect self-
control, and in the courageous man we may say it is more
obedient still, inasmuch as their whole nature is in harmony
with reason.

1 8 The irrational element also falls into two parts — the
vegetative and the appetitive. Of these the former does
not participate in reason, whereas the appetitive, and the
element of desire in general, partakes of it in a manner,
i.e. so far as it listens to reason and submits to its
guidance. When we say it participates in reason, or listens
to reason, we mean it in the sense in which we might
speak of a man's listening to reason from father or
friends, not in the sense of listening to a mathematician's
reasons. All advice, as well as all reproof and exhortation,
further prove that there is a sense in which the irrational
element is amenable to reason.

I xiii. THE SOUL AND ITS PARTS. 231

If, however, we prefer to say that this part belongs to 19
the rational element, we must then take the latter as falling
into two parts — that which possesses reason in the proper
sense and on its own right, and that which has an ear to
its commands, as a man has to the commandments of his
father.

The classification of the virtues is based upon this division.
For we call some of them intellectual and others moral.
Wisdom or philosophy, intelligence, and prudence we call
intellectual ; liberality and self-mastery we call moral virtues.
For when we are speaking of a man's moral character we
do not say that he is philosophical or intelligent, but gentle
or self-controlled. Nevertheless, we praise the philosopher
for the trained habit of his mind, and trained habits which
we praise we call virtues.

232 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. II. i.

V.
THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE.

i [11. i.] Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and
moral, intellectual virtue depends chiefly for its origin and
growth upon instruction, and hence requires experience
and time. Moral virtue, on the other hand, is formed by
habit, from which also, by a slight change, it derives its
name (^LKJJ fr. Z0OS ; cp. " moral " fr. mores). Hence it is clear
that none of the moral virtues is implanted in us by nature
For no natural law can be altered by training. A stone for
instance, naturally falls downwards, and you could never
tram it to fly up into the air, even although you were to
throw it up ten thousand times; nor could you train fire
to burn downwards, nor bring any other thing through
habitation to act in a manner contrary to its own nature.
The virtues, then, do not come by nature. / Yet neither are
they contrary to nature. We have a natural capacity for
4 acquiring them, but they are developed by habit. Another
ifference is that, in the case of natural endowments we
possess the faculty first, and afterwards exercise the function
The senses are an obvious example. We do not learn to
see or to hear from frequent exercise of the eye or the ear
On the contrary, we have the faculty first, and then we use
it ; we do not acquire the faculty by using it. The virtues
i on the contrary, we acquire by doing the actions, as in
the analogous case of artistic skill. We learn an art by

II. i. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 233

doing what we wish to do when we have learned it : we
become builders by building, and harpers by harping. In
the same way, by doing just actions we become just; by
doing continent and courageous actions, continent and
courageous. This is attested by what occurs in states. 5
The law-giver makes the citizens good by training them in
the habit of good behaviour. All legislators at least aim at
doing so, although some by training badly fail of success,
and it is this that makes the difference between good con
stitutions and bad.

Further, every virtue is produced and destroyed in the 6
same circumstances and by the same actions. Here, again, we
have an analogy with the arts. It is by harping that good
and bad harpers alike are produced, and this holds also of
building and all other employments. By building well a
man will become a good builder, by building badly a bad
one. If this were not so there would be no need of 7
teaching; all would be born either good or bad at their
trades. It is just the same in the case of the virtues. It
is by our actions in our intercourse with our fellow-men that
we become just or unjust, and by engaging in actions that
imply danger, and accustoming ourselves to feel fear or
confidence, we become courageous or cowardly. Similarly
with regard to desire and anger : by conducting themselves
in this way or that, in presence of these impulses, some men
become continent and gentle, others incontinent and wrath
ful. In a word, habits of any kind spring from actions of
the same kind. This is the reason why we ought to be 6
particular about the character of our actions, for habits vary
with the actions by means of which they are formed. It
is no matter of indifference, therefore, whether a man is
trained from childhood to behave in this way or in that.
On the contrary, it makes all the difference in the world.

234 NICOM ACHEAN ETHICS. II. n.

1 [ii.] This being so, and ethical inquiry differing from
others in not being undertaken in the interest of theory (for
we are seeking not merely for a definition of virtue, but for
the means of producing it, otherwise there would be little
profit), we must inquire what we mean by good actions ; for,
as we have already said, it is action which determines our
habits or character.

2 Now it is a common characteristic of all good actions that
they have a certain order or proportion. We may take
this as the starting-point of our theory, leaving for future
investigation what we mean by the right order, or the right

3 proportion, and how it is related to the virtues. Let me,
however, remind you again that a theory of conduct can be
no more than an outline. It cannot go into detail. As we
said at the outset, the form of the reasoning depends upon
the subject-matter; and in matters of conduct there are no
fixed rules as to what it is right to do, any more than there

4 are in the case of health and sickness. And if this is true
of the theory of conduct in general, we are still less entitled
to demand exactness with reference to the details of conduct.
For these fall under no art or rule : the agent himself must
consider the circumstances under which he is called upon
to act, just as the doctor and the navigator have to do.

5 Notwithstanding these limitations we must try to render
what help we can.

6 In the first place, then, we may observe that in matters
of this sort excess and defect are alike fatal, as we may see
(to illustrate the invisible from the visible) from the example
of physical health and strength. Too much and too little
exercise alike tend to undermine a man's strength, and
in like manner too much or too little food and drink is
equally ruinous to health, whereas the proper proportion

7 produces, increases, and preserves it. Just so in the case

II. ii. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 235

of self-control and courage, and the other virtues. The man
who shuns and fears everything, and never makes a stand,
becomes a coward ; while he who fears absolutely nothing,
but will face anything, becomes foolhardy. Similarly, the
man who indulges ;n every pleasure, and refrains from none,
is a profligate; while he who shuns all pleasure (like the
boor that he is) wants sensibility. We conclude, then, that
self-control and courage are destroyed by excess and defect,
but are preserved by the mean.

But further, not only are habits produced and developed
and destroyed on the same occasions and by the same
process, but they tend also to realize themselves in the
same circumstances. This is so in the case of palpable
things like strength. For strength of body is acquired by
taking plenty of food and doing plenty of work, and, on the
other hand, the strong man has the greatest capacity in
these ways. The same is the case with the virtues. By
abstaining from pleasure we acquire self-control, and when
we have acquired it we have the greatest power of abstain
ing. And similarly with courage : accustoming ourselves to
despise danger and to face it, we become courageous, and,
on the other hand, when we have become courageous, we
are best able to face danger.

[iii.] The sign that the habit has been formed we must
take to be the pleasure or the pain that attends the actions.
The man who refrains from bodily pleasures, and takes
pleasure in doing so, is the man of perfect self-mastery ; the
man who hates having to restrain himself is profligate. The
man who not only faces dangers but rejoices in facing them,
or at least feels no pain, is courageous ; he who feels pain
is a coward.

Pains and pleasures, indeed, may be said to -be the chief
concern in all that relates to morals. For, in the first

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. II. in.

place, it is pleasure that tempts us to do what is wrong, and

2 pain which keeps us from doing what is right. And there
fore, as Plato says, man needs to be so trained from child
hood that he may find pleasure and pain in the right

3 objects. This is what true education means. Another
reason for holding that pains and pleasures have an intimate
connection with morality, is that we are here concerned
with action and passion, and every action and passion is

4 attended by pain or pleasure. And a still further is
that pains are employed in punishment. For they are
a species of remedy, and remedies are the natural counter
actives of the disease. Again, as previously said, every
trained habit of the soul is closely related to all that acts
upon it for good or ill. But it is by pursuing or avoiding
pains and pleasures, either of a wrong kind, or at a wrong
time or in the wrong manner, or going wrong in some other
of the various distinguishable ways that bad characters are
formed. Hence some people have defined virtue as a
species of impassivity or apathy. They make a mistake,
however, putting it in this unqualified way, and not adding
the qualifying circumstances of manner, time, etc.

ii We may assume, then, that virtue is concerned with
pains and pleasures; that it is increased by doing the
actions by which it is produced, and, on the other hand,
destroyed by actions of the opposite kind; and that it
realizes itself in the kind of actions which have pro
duced it.

i [iv.] A difficulty, however, may here be raised, and we
may be asked what we mean by saying that one must
become just by doing just actions, and temperate by doing
temperate actions. For if our acts are just and temperate,
surely we are already temperate and just, as we should be
grammatical and musical if in practice we obeyed the laws

II. iv. THE GENERAL NATURE OF VIRTUE. 237

of grammar and music. The answer is, in the first place,
that there is an ambiguity here even in the case of the arts.
For we may speak or write grammatically by chance, or at
the prompting of another. But a man will be grammatical
only if he does so as a grammarian, i.e. as a result of his own
knowledge of grammar. But, secondly, the analogy of the
arts is misleading. The products of art have a value in
themselves. It is therefore sufficient if they have a certain
quality of their own. In the case of the virtues, on the other
hand, actions are not called just or temperate if they are
merely actions of a certain kind, but only if they are the
outcome of a certain state of mind : in the first place,
if the agent knows what he is doing; secondly, if he
chooses to do it, and chooses it as good; thirdly, if his
action is the expression of a formed and stable character.
These conditions, with the exception of the first, viz. know
ledge, are not taken into account in the case of works of art.
In the case of good conduct, on the other hand, knowledge
is of comparatively little importance, but the other conditions,
which depend upon the frequent performance of just and
temperate actions, are of no little importance : rather they
are all-important.

Acts, then, are said to be just and temperate when they
are such as the just and temperate man would do. And the
just and temperate man is not merely the man who acts
justly and temperately, but the man who does so in the
spirit of the just and temperate man. We were therefore
right in saying that a man is made just by acting justly, and
temperate by acting temperately. On the other hand, no
one who neglects such actions has the remotest chance of
ever becoming a good man. And yet the majority of
mankind do neglect them, taking refuge in talk instead,
under the impression that they have a philosophy of life

238 NICOMACIIEAN ETHICS. II. iv.

which will do the business for them. Like patients who
listen attentively to what their physician says, but are
careful to do nothing that he tells them, they have as little
chance of getting good to their souls from their theories
as these have of recovering their health by this kind of
treatment.

239

VI.

THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE.

[n. vi.] IT is not sufficient, however, to assign virtue or •
excellence to the genus habit : we must indicate what species
of habit it is. We may lay it down that all excellence
perfects the condition of that of which it is the excellence,
and enables it to fulfil its function. Thus the excellence of
the eye makes both the eye good and its work good ; for
it is the excellence of the eye which makes us see well.
Likewise, the excellence of a horse not only makes the
horse good, but makes it good at running, and carrying its
rider, and at awaiting the enemy. If, then, this is universally
true, it follows that the excellence or virtue of a man will be
the habit which makes the man good, and enables him to
perform his work.jox function well. We have already shown
how this will be accomplished ; but we shall make it still
clearer if we now proceed to the specific nature of
virtue.

In respect to all quantities which are both continuous and
divisible, we may take a greater, a less, or an equal amount,
and that either of the quantity itself or relatively to ourselves,
tjie equal amount being a kind of mean between too much
and too little. Now by the mean of a thing itself we under
stand that which is equidistant from each of the extremes,
and is one and the same for all ; whereas by the mean

240 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. II, vi.

relatively to ourselves we mean that which is neither too
much nor too little. The latter is not any single quantity,

6 nor is it the same for all. Thus if we call ten many, and
two few, six will be the mean from the point of view of the
object. For it exceeds two by the same amount as it falls

7 short of ten. This is the mean according to arithmetical
proportion. But from the point of view of the subject it
is different. For if ten pounds of food are too much for
a man, and two are too little, the trainer in gymnastics
will not order six pounds ; for this may be too much or
too little for the special case : for a Milo it may be too little,
but for one who is beginning to train it may be too much.

8 And similarly in running and wrestling. We see, then,
that the expert and connoisseur in every department tries
to avoid excess and defect, but seeks for and selects the
mean — the mean, that is, not of the thing itself, but
relatively to us.

9 Science and knowledge, then, perfect function by keeping
an eye upon the mean, and testing all results by it. And
hence we declare of results which are excellent, that there is
nothing either to add or subtract, implying that excess and
defect destroy excellence while the mean preserves it, and
that good artists, as we were saying, work with their eye upon
the mean. If this is so, and if virtue is finer and better than

t any art, herein resembling nature herself, it will aim at the
mean. The reader will of course understand that I am

10 speaking of moral virtue. For this is concerned with actions
' and passions which admit of excess and defect, and of a mean.

Thus, in feeling fear, confidence, desire, anger, pity, and
pleasure and pain generally, we may exceed or fall short,

11 and both are wrong. But to experience these feelings at
1 the right time, in reference to the right things, towards the

right people, from the right motive, and in the right manner,

II. VI. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 241

is a mean and to_the sure test of excellence, [n like
manner there is excess and defect and a mean in actions
And virtue is concerned with actions as well as passions
in both of which excess and defect are wrong, while the
mean is praised and is what is right. But when an act is
praised and is right we have virtue, which we may there i->
fore define as a species of mean or at least as aiming at the
mean.

Moreover, as there are many ways of going wrong (for evil 14
as the Pythagoreans maintain, is infinite, but good is finite)'
whereas there is only one way of going right (and this is why
one is easy, the other difficult: it is easy to miss the mark
but difficult to hit it;, this is another reason for holdin*
that excess and defect are a mark of vice, while the mean is
a mark of virtue.

" Single the path of the good, to evil there's many a broad way."

Virtue, thesis a habit of choosing what is t/ic mean relatively 15
to ourselves, as it is determined by reason, or as t/ie wise '
man would determine it. It is the mean between two vices
one of excess, the other of defect, one class of vices falling 16
short of what is right in feeling and action, the other going
to excess; whereas virtue finds and chooses the middle

course.

When, therefore, we are seeking a logical definition of 17
virtue we must describe it as a mean. But we must
remember that when we look at it from the point of view of
what is best and "well done," it is itself an extreme. More- 18
over, the fact that every action and every feeling does not
admit of a mean, suggests a further qualification. For some
feelings are stigmatized by their very name as bad : as, for
example, malice, immodesty, envy. And the same is true of
actions, e.g. adultery, theft, murder. All actions of this kind

K

242 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. H. vi.

by their very name, imply that they are evil, nor do they
t admit of excess and defect. It is impossible ever to be right
in respect of them. They are always wrong. There is no
right person, right time, right manner, in respect to which it
is lawful, e.g. to commit adultery. To do any of them is simply

1 9 and entirely wrong. To deny this is like maintaining that there .
is a mean, an excess, and a defect in injustice or in cowardice
or in incontinence. If this were so, we should require to
have a mean of the excess and of the defect, and similarly

20 an excess of excess, and a defect of defect. But just as
there is no extreme and defect in self-control and courage,
the middle here being so to speak an end, so there is neither
a mean nor an excess or defect of the actions we are
speaking of. They are wrong in whatever way they are
done. For it is a general principle that there is neither any
mean of excess or defect, nor any excess and defect of the
mean.

1 [vii.] It is not, however, enough to give a general
definition ; we must try to apply it to details. In ethical
discussions universal statements are apt to be vague ; the
proof of them is in the application. For conduct is always
concerned with particulars, and any theory which is advanced
must be one that fits the facts. And here we may follow
the ordinary list.

2 « Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.
Of the extremes on the side of excess, the man who has too
little fear has no name (many of these types are in this con
dition) ; the man who has too much confidence is foolhardy.
On the other hand, the man who is timid in excess, or who
falls short in confidence, is a coward.

3 In respect to pleasures and pains — though all pleasures
are not included, and it is less concerned with pains — the
mean is temperance ; the extreme on the side of excess

II. vir. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 243

is profligacy. There can hardly be said to be persons who
are defective in sensibility to pleasure. Hence we have
no name for such persons, but we may call them insensible.

The mean in giving and taking money is liberality; the 4
excess and defect are respectively prodigality and illiberality.
Men exceed and fall short in contrary directions. The
prodigal exceeds in giving, but falls short in taking. Whereas 5
the illiberal man exceeds in taking, but falls short in giving.
(At present I am only giving a rough outline and summary ;
we shall go more fully into details presently.) Besides these 6
there are other types of character concerned with money.
Thus there is a mean called magnificence — the magnifi
cent man differing from the liberal man in having to do
with great matters, while the latter has to do with small.
The excess here is bad taste or vulgarity, and the defect
meanness, which again differ from the qualities similarly
related to liberality. The nature of the difference we shall
examine hereafter.

With regard to honour and dishonour, there is a mean 7
called magnanimity, or high-mindedness, a species of excess
called vanity, and a defect called pusillanimity or little-
mindedness. High-mindedness being concerned with great 8
honours, there is a quality which bears the same relation
to it as liberality does to magnificence, and is the corre
sponding virtue with respect to small honours. For it is
possible to desire honour in a right way, and, again, to
desire it too much or too little. The man who desires it in
excess is the ambitious man ; he who is defective in the
desire for it is unambitious. The man who is in the mean,
however, has no name. The qualities, moreover, are with
out names, except the quality of the ambitious man, which
we call ambition — with the consequence that the extremes
lay claim to the intermediate area, and we sometimes call

244 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. II. vn.

the man who is in the mean ambitious, and sometimes
unambitious, and sometimes we praise the ambitious and

9 sometimes the unambitious man. The reason why we do
so will be explained hereafter. Meantime, let us finish the
enumeration as we have begun it.

10 There is an excess, a defect, and a mean in anger.
These can hardly be said to have names, but we may call
the man who is in the mean gentle, and the mean itself
gentleness. Of the extremes we may call the man who goes
to excess wrathful, and the vice wrathfulness ; the man who
is defective spiritless, and the defect spiritlessness.

11 There are other three virtues which have a certain
resemblance to one another, but which yet are different
from one another. They are all means in the inter
course of words and actions. But they differ in that the first
has to do with truthfulness in such intercourse, the other two
with pleasantness. Of the latter, one is displayed in amuse
ments, the other in the affairs of life generally. On all of
these I must say a word with the view of bringing out more
clearly that the mean is everywhere praised, while the
extremes are neither praised nor right, but on the contrary
are blamed. The greater number of them indeed have no
name. But we must try, as in the case of the others, to
assign names to them, both for the sake of clearness and
coherence of statement.

12 (a) In respect to truth, the man who is in the mean we
may call truthful, and the mean truthfulness. Pretence,
on the other hand, when it overstates, we call boasting, and
the pretender a boaster ; when it understates, irony, and the
man who uses it, ironical.

13 (b) With regard to pleasantness in amusements, the man
who is in the mean is playful, and the quality playfulness.
The excess is buffoonery, and the man who goes to excess

II. vn. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 245

a buffoon. The man who is defective is a boor, and the habit
boorishness. With regard to pleasantness in life generally,
the man who is sweet and pleasant in the right way is friendly,
and the mean is friendliness ; the man who goes to excess,
if for no end at all, is complaisant, if for his own ends, a
flatterer; while he who is defective in this quality, and
always makes himself unpleasant, is quarrelsome and dis
agreeable.

There are, moreover, ways of observing the mean in 14
respect to the feelings and their immediate accompaniments.
Thus, although shame is not a virtue, yet we praise the
modest man. For where we may expect a man to feel
shame one is said to observe the mean, and another to
exceed, the bashful man being one who is shy of everything.
The man on the other hand who has too little shame, or is
shy of nothing, is shameless ; while the man who is in the
mean is modest.

Righteous indignation is the mean between envy and 15
malevolence — sentiments which consist of the pain and
pleasure which come to our friends through the accidents of
life. The man who feels pain at undeserved good fortune
is rightly indignant. The envious man goes further, and
feels pain at all good fortune. The malevolent man, so far
from being pained, actually rejoices in the misfortunes of his
friends. But I shall have another opportunity of discussing
these qualities.

With regard to justice, as there are several kinds of it, I
shall hereafter distinguish between the various forms and
define in what sense they are means. And similarly when
we come to the intellectual virtues.

[n. ix.] Thus we have seen that moral virtue is a mean, i
' a,nd in what sense it is so. It is a mean between two

246 N ICO M ACHE AN ETHICS. H- ix.

vices, the one of excess, the other of defect, and it is so
because it aims at the middle course in feeling and action.

2 Hence it is a hard task to be good. For it is a hard task to
find the mean in anything, just as it is not every one who can
find the centre of a circle. A man must know how to do it.
It is easy enough to get angry, to give away or lay out money.
Any one can do that. But to give to the right person the
right amount, at the right time, for the right object, and in the
right manner, is by no means easy, nor is it every one who
can do it. This is the reason why right conduct is rarely
found, and is praiseworthy and a fine thing.

3 It follows from this that he who would hit the mean must
begin by shunning that which is the more opposed to it,
following the advice Calypso gives to Ulysses —

" Away from the surf and the breakers see that thou pilot the good ship."

For of the extremes, one is a more dangerous error than the

4 other. Since, then, it is extremely difficult to hit the mean,
we must, if we fail, be content with the " second best course "
and choose the lesser evil, and this will best be done in the
way we have mentioned, viz. by considering what we ourselves
as individuals are most addicted to, different people having
different temptations. And here we shall be guided by

5 the amount of pleasure or pain we have in anything. We
must then lend ourselves a pull in the opposite direction,
since by drawing far away from the error we shall be more
likely to arrive at the mean, as one sees a man doing when

6 he is trying to straighten a bent stick. Against pleasure and
the pleasurable especially we must always be on our guard.
For there is not one of us who has not received a bribe to
give a wrong verdict in its favour. We must therefore take
the attitude towards pleasure that the elders took towards

II. IX. THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF VIRTUE. 247

Helen, and be always repeating their maxim : " If we send
her away we shall sin the less."

Without going further, then, we may say that if we act thus
we shall best be able to strike the mean. Yet this, it must
be confessed, is difficult at the best, and all the more in
the actual complexities of life. Thus it is not easy to decide
how, and with whom, and on what account, and for how
long we ought to be angry. And with the best intentions we
sometimes praise those who are not angry enough, and call
them gentle ; at other times we say of the wrathful that they
have a manly spirit. In short, we do not blame the man
who deflects in a slight degree from the straight path, either
in the direction of excess or defect, but only the man who
deflects widely, and in a marked manner. But to what degree
and extent a man may go wrong without incurring blame it is
not easy to define theoretically, any more than on other
occasions when we have to rely upon intuitive perception.
In such cases it all depends upon the circumstances, and
these are judged of intuitively as they arise.

So much, then, is clear that the mean state is always praise
worthy, but that we must sometimes lean to the excess,
sometimes to the defect, in order that we may the more
easily hit the mean and do what is right.

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. vi.

VII.

COURAGE.

[m. vi.] PROCEEDING now to the discussion of the virtues in
detail with the view of determining their general character,
together with the field and manner of their exercise,
we may begin with Courage.

We have already seen that courage is a mean with
regard to fear and confidence. It is clear that the object
of fear is what is fearful, i.e. evil in general. Hence the
definition of fear as the expectation of evil. Although all
evils— disgrace, poverty, disease, friendlessness, death— are
objects of fear, yet courage is not manifested with respect
to all of them. For there are some things which one ought
to fear, which it is noble to fear and disgraceful not to fear,
e.g. dishonour. The man who fears dishonour shows a right
spirit of self-respect; he who does not fear it is shameless.
Yet he is called courageous by some people by a metaphor,
seeing that he has a certain resemblance to the courageous
man, who is in a sense devoid of fear. Poverty, on the other
hand, and disease ought not to be feared nor generally any
thing that is not the result of vice or of one's own act.
Yet the man who has no fear of these is not courageous
—although he also is called so by analogy. For some who
are cowards amid the dangers of war are liberal men, and
look the loss of money bravely in the face. Nor, on the

In- vi. COURAGE.

249

other hand, is a man a coward who fears violence to wife or
child, or the pain of envy or anything of this kind. Nor,
again, is a man said to be courageous if he keeps up his
spirits in the prospect of the lash.

What, then, are the objects of fear which the courageous 6
man faces ? Are they not the greatest ? for no one surpasses
him in withstanding what is really terrible. But the king of
terrors is death. For death is the end of all, and after
death it is thought there is neither good nor evil for a
man. But there would appear to be even kinds of death 7
in respect to which it is impossible to show true courage.
For instance, death by drowning, or by disease. What, 8
then, is the proper object of courage? Is it not death in
the noblest cause, viz. death in the battlefield ? For here
the danger is the greatest and is faced for the noblest
object. And this is confirmed by the honours which 9
courage receives in free states and at the hand of kings.

A man, then, is called courageous in the proper sense 10
when he shows himself fearless at the prospect of death in
a noble cause and in all sudden emergencies that involve
death — conditions which are present in a special degree in
war. I do not mean to say that a man cannot show n
courage at sea or in sickness. But his courage will not be
of the same kind as that of the ordinary sailor. For the
landsman is quick to despair of safety and cannot bear to
think of such a death, whereas the experience of the sailor
makes him always sanguine. Moreover, men are courageous 12
in circumstances where prowess may be shown and where
death is noble — neither of which conditions are present in
the forms of death just alluded to.

[vii.] Men differ as to the things which they fear, but i
there are things which it is beyond human nature not to
fear. These no man of sense will regard without terror, but

250 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. vn.

dangers which are not overwhelming differ in magnitude

2 and degree, as also do things that give courage. The
courageous man is he who, as far as man can be, is un
dismayed by danger. Fearful things he will indeed fear,
but he will face them as he ought, and as reason enjoins,
for the sake of a noble cause. For this is what virtue means.

3 But it is 'possible to fear such things too much or too
little, and, again, to regard with terror things which are not

4 terrible at all. And here a man may go wrong by fearing
x what it is not right to fear, or by fearing in the wrong way,

or at the wrong time, and so on. And similarly with regard
to things that give courage.

5 The man, then, who governs his fear and likewise his
confidence aright, facing dangers it is right to face, and for
the right cause, in the right manner, and at the right time, is
courageous. For the courageous man regulates both his
feelings and his actions with due regard to the circumstances

6 and as reason and proportion suggest. But the end of every
action is to exhibit the quality for the sake of which
the trained habit exists. Now, courage is a fine thing in
the man who has it. And hence we may infer that this is
the end of the courageous act, and if so the essence of it,
for the essence of a thing is to be looked for in its end or
function. The courageous man, therefore, faces danger
and does the courageous thing because it is a fine thing
to do.

7 Of the extremes, that on the side of fearlessness has no
name. (We have already seen that there are several in
like case.) A man might be described as a madman or
insensate if he feared nothing at all, not even earthquakes
or breakers, as they tell of the Celts.*

* "The Celts who dwell by the ocean deem it base to flee from a
falling wall or house, and when a flood-tide comes in from the sea, taking

III. vn. COURAGE. 251

He, on the other hand, whose confidence in circumstances
of danger is excessive is the foolhardy man, who is likely 8
enough to be a swaggerer, and to pretend to courage which
he has not got. He wishes, at any rate, to appear to be
what the courageous man actually is in the presence of
danger, and therefore imitates him as far as he can. And
so your foolhardy man is usually a coward at heart. He 9
swaggers where he can with safety, but he backs out when
the real danger comes.

The man whose timidity is excessive is the coward, for 10
he fears the wrong thing, in the wrong way : in fact, his
whole attitude is wrong. He is also defective in confidence.
But it is his excess of fear that betrays him, rather than
his want of confidence. The coward, then, is the sort of 1 1
man who easily loses hope, for he fears everything. The
courageous man is just the opposite of this. For confidence
is the mark of a hopeful man.

The cowardly, the foolhardy, and the courageous nature 12
then exhibit themselves in the same circumstances, but each
in a different manner. The former goes to excess, or falls
short ; while the last is in the mean and right. The foolhardy
man, moreover, is precipitate : eager before danger, when
the danger comes he is apt to fail • whereas the courageous
man is keen in action, but quiet beforehand.

Courage, then, as already said, is a mean in respect to all 13
that inspires fear or confidence in war. The brave man
chooses to stand his ground because it is noble to do so,
or because not to do so would be base. But to seek
death as an escape from poverty, or love, or any other pain
ful experience is no mark of courage, but, on the contrary,

up arms against it, they stand their ground till they are overwhelmed
by it, that they may not by taking to flight seem to be afraid of death."
— Extract from Stobseus.

252 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. vin.

of cowardice. For it is pure effeminacy to try to escape
trouble, and the suicide braves death not because it is
noble, but in order to escape an evil.

[viii.] True courage is such as I have described it, but
there are five other kinds, which, though they bear the name,
are spurious. First there is civil courage. This bears the
closest resemblance to the genuine thing. For citizens are
known to face danger on account of the penalties of the law
and the reproaches of their fellows, or, again, for the sake
of the honours that will be bestowed on them. This is why
the citizens of states in which cowardice is held in dis
honour while courage is honoured, appear to be the most
courageous. Homer gives us examples, e.g. in Hector, when
he says —

" Polydamas will first reproach me ; "
and in Diomede —

" Amongst the Trojans Hector then will speak,
' The son of Tydeus terror-struck of me ' "

This form bears the closest resemblance to the courage
we have described, because it comes of virtue, having its
source in shame and in a desire for honour, which is a
noble thing ; or, again, in fear of disgrace, which is ignoble.
In the same class I should place all those who show
courage under constraint of their superiors, but on a lower
level, inasmuch as they act from fear, not from shame.
What they seek to avoid is not disgrace but pain. They are
constrained by the threats of their commanders, as the army
is by Hector —

" And whosoever he be that skulketh afar from the battle,
Ne'er shall his carcase escape the devouring teeth of the dogs."

III. vin. COURAGE. 253

And the same thing is done by commanders who order 5
their men to stand, and who strike them if they give way,
and by those who draw up their men in front of ditches,
and the like. They all use constraint. But true courage
is rooted not in compulsion, but in honour.

In the second place, experience in any field has the look 6
of courage, and this explains why Socrates held that courage
was knowledge. Different people show this kind of courage
in different fields. Those who show it in war are the
regular troops. For there are many false alarms in war,
and this the regulars best know. They therefore appear
courageous because the other troops do not understand the
real state of matters. Moreover, they are more capable 7
both in attack and defence because of their experience,
and because they not only have the weapons best adapted
for attack and defence, but they best know how to use them.
They thus have the advantage which armed men have over 8
unarmed, or trained athletes over untrained. For in athletic
contests, also, it is not the most courageous who are
the best fighters, but the strongest, and those who are in
best condition. On the other hand, professional soldiers 9
turn cowards when there is real danger, and when they are
inferior in numbers or in equipment. They are then the
first to fly, while the citizen soldier stands and dies at his
post, as happened in the engagement at the Hermseum.*
For he deems flight a dishonour, and death is preferable
to safety purchased on such terms. On the other hand,

* "The citadel of Coronea, a town in Boeotia, having been treacher
ously surrendered to Onomarchus the Phocian commander, an engage
ment took place in an open place called the Hermaeum, in which the
Coroneans themselves, who had shut the gates behind them so •<
render retreat impossible, stood their ground and were cut to pieces,
while their Boeotian auxiliaries on the fall of one of their commanders
took to flight at the beginning of the battle "-Scholiast (condensed,

254 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. vin.

the regulars who at the first faced the enemy because they
thought they were stronger, on closer acquaintance take to
flight, because they fear death more than disgrace. But true
courage is quite different from this.

Thirdly, the term " courage " is sometimes applied to rage,
and it is true that those who act under the influence of passion,
like wild beasts rushing on the hunter who wounds them,'
appear to be courageous. The reason being that courageous
men are actually men of quick passion. For passion, more
than anything else, makes men rush on dangers. As Homer
says, "he put might in his spirit," "he waked his wrath and
his spirit," "keen was the wrath in his nostrils," "fired was
1 his blood ; " all indicating the stir and rush of passion. The
truth is that, while the truly courageous man acts for the
honour of it, with passion for his ally, wild beasts are driven
on by pain, attacking when they are struck or alarmed, and
not attacking when they are safe in the bush. There is no
courage, then, in rushing on danger under the stimulus of
pain or passion, and without foresight of the grounds for
alarm. On this principle we should have to call hungry
donkeys courageous, inasmuch as they refuse to leave off
eating even when you beat them. Adulterers, moreover, often
do venturous things under the influence of lust or passion.

12 The courage of passion, I admit, is the most natural, and
when moral choice and the proper object are added, we
have true courage. But men who are in a rage suffer pain,
and are pleased when they avenge themselves, and when
they fight for these reasons we call them pugnacious, but not
courageous. For they act from passion, not for the honour
of it, or as reason directs. All the same, they bear a certain
resemblance to the courageous man.

13 Fourthly, we must distinguish the courageous from the
sanguine man, who from being frequently victorious

III. vni. COURAGE. 255

grows confident in danger. They have a strong family
resemblance, as they are both confident. But the former
is confident for the reason already named, the latter because
he thinks he is the best man and will take no harm. A 14
man behaves in the same way when he gets drunk, for
he then grows sanguine. When, however, things turn out 15
badly the sanguine man runs away. On -the other hand,
we saw that it is the mark of courage to face what not only
is terrible to a man, but appears to him to be so, because
it is noble to do it and not to do it is ignoble. And this
is why it needs greater courage to be fearless and undis
mayed amid sudden than expected alarm. The less time
for preparation, the more clearly is conduct the outcome of
formed character. Where there is time for deliberation a
man's choice maybe the result of reasoning and calculation,
whereas sudden emergencies are a test of character.

Lastly, a man may appear to be courageous when he is 16
only ignorant. Such a person is not very far removed from
the sanguine man, but he is inferior to him in not having
any opinion of himself as the latter has. Hence, while the
sanguine man stands his ground for a time, the man who has
been deceived, so soon as he discovers or suspects that
things are not what he thought, runs away. This was the
case with the Argives when they fell upon the Lacedaemonians,
mistaking them for Sicyonians.* We have now discussed the 1 7
character of the courageous man, and those types which
have the appearance without the reality of courage.

[ix.] Though courage has to do with fear and confidence, I
it is not equally concerned with both, having more to do
with occasions of fear. For it is the man who is undismayed,
and behaves as he ought in the presence of danger, whom

* See above, p. 107.

256 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. ix.

we take as the type of courage, rather than the man who

2 does so on occasions that inspire confidence. And so, as
has been said, a man is called courageous for enduring pain.
Hence courage is a painful thing, and is rightly praised.
For it is harder to endure pain than to abstain from pleasure.

3 I do not mean to say that the end of courage is not pleasant,
but the pleasure is concealed by the attendant circum
stances, as happens also in contests of strength. Boxers,
for instance, find the idea of the end or object for which
they strive, viz. the crown or the honour, pleasant ; but they
find the blows and all the labour grievous, and full of pain
to flesh and blood. And because the toil is great, while

4 the prize is small, it seems to bring little pleasure. If this,"
then, is the case with courage, the brave man will look on
death and wounds with pain and repulsion, but he will endure
them because it is noble to do so, and ignoble not to do so.
And the more he is endowed with every virtue and every
happiness, the more grievous will he feel death to be. For
to such a man life has the highest value, and he knows
that he is losing the greatest of goods, and this is painful.
But he is none the less courageous on this account, perhaps
all the more so, because he chooses a noble deed in war in

5 preference to those good things. From which it follows
that pleasure does not accompany the exercise of all the

5 virtues, except in so far as the object is attained. It is,
however, quite possible that it is not men of this sort who
make the best regulars, but those who, though not so
courageous, have nothing to lose. Such men are ready
to face every danger, and to risk their lives for small
gain.

n So much for courage. It will not be difficult to gather a
general idea of its nature from what has been said.

257

VIII.
TEMPERANCE.

[in. x.] AFTER courage comes Temperance, for these two are
the virtues which are concerned with the irrational elements
m our nature. We have already seen that temperance is a
mean with respect to pleasures, being concerned in a less
degree, and in a different way, with the corresponding pains.
It is in respect to pleasures, also, that profligacy manifests
itself. Let us now try to determine the nature of the plea
sures in question.

We may distinguish pleasures of the body from pleasures
of the soul, e.g. those of gratified ambition or of knowledge.
The man who loves honour or knowledge takes pleasure in
the object of his desire, although it is the mind and not the
body which is affected. But we do not call a man
temperate or profligate with respect to such pleasures.
Nor, again, with respect to any of the other pleasures
which are not of the body. Thus we call the man who
loves gossip and talk, or who spends his days on trifles, a
babbler, not a profligate. Nor, again, do we apply the
term to the man who takes the loss of money or friends
too much to heart. Temperance is concerned with bodily
pleasures, though not with all even of these. For those who
delight in using their eyes, ^in looking at 'colours or
forms or paintings, are not said to be temperate or profligate,
although there would appear to be a right way of taking

NICOMACHEA.N ETHICS. III. x.

delight in these things also, as well as a possibility of

4 taking too much or too little pleasure in them. Similarly
with regard to the pleasures of hearing. No one would
call a man who takes an excessive delight in music or the
stage, profligate ; nor, again, the man who takes a proper

5 pleasure in these temperate. And the same is true of smell,
unless we take association into account. For there is no
profligacy in being fond of the smell of apples, or roses,
or incense, although there may be in being fond of the
smell of perfumes and savoury dishes. The profligate takes
pleasure in the latter because it is suggestive of things he

6 lusts after, and even others besides gluttons take pleasure
in the smell of food when they are hungry. It is the
dwelling upon such delights that marks the profligate man,
and this comes of making them an object of desire.

7 Even among the brutes the pleasure derived from these
senses comes from suggestion. It is not the scent of the
hare that delights the dog, but the meal that is suggested
by it. Similarly, a lion delights in eating the ox, not in
hearing it low. The lowing tells him the ox is near, and he
therefore appears to take delight in it for itself. So, again,
it is not the sight of "a stag or a wild goat," but the
prospect of a dinner that delights him.

8 Temperance and profligacy, then, are concerned with
such pleasures as are shared in by the lower animals. This
is why we speak of such pleasures, viz. those of touch and

9 taste, as slavish and bestial. With taste, however, they are
concerned only in a small degree, if at all. For it is by
taste that we distinguish flavours, as, for instance, in testing
wines or seasoning dishes. But it is not the fine discrimi
nation that gives delight, at any rate to the profligate, but
the actual enjoyment of the object which in the case of
meats and drinks and so-called sexual pleasure depends

IILx- TEMPERANCE. 359

upon touch. This is why the gourmand in the story wished 10
that his throat were longer than a crane's, showing that he
relied for the pleasure of eating upon the sense of touch.
The sense, then, with which profligacy is concerned is the
most universal of all, and the vice itself is rightly held to be
a shameful one, inasmuch as it belongs to our animal rather
than our human nature. To take delight in such things, u
and to prefer them to anything else, is brutish. Yet even
here we must except the more manly pleasures of touch,
such as those of rubbing and of the warm bath in the
gymnasium. For the sensations of touch which the profligate
man cultivates are not spread over the whole of the body,
but confined to particular parts.

[xi.] If we look at human desires we see that some are i
universal, others individual and acquired. Thus the desire
for food is natural and universal. Every one when he is
hungry desires food, solid or liquid— sometimes both— and,
as Homer says, the marriage couch when young and strong.
But every one does not desire a particular kind of food, nor
the same kind. Hence, such desires appear to be individual 2
and peculiar. Not that they have not a touch of nature in
them. For different things are naturally pleasant to different
people, and there are some things which every one prefers.

Now, in respect to the natural desires, few people go 3
wrong, and when they do it is usually in the one direction—
that of excess. For to eat and drink whatever comes to
hand to repletion is to exceed nature in point of quantity, as
the satisfaction of a natural desire is the mere filling up of a
want. Hence, the name " greedy-bellies " applied to people
who fill themselves too full. It is a slavish vice. On the 4
other hand, in the case of preferences for particular plea
sures there are many ways of going wrong, and many
actually do err. For when we say that a man is fond

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. xi.

of a pleasure, we mean either that he likes what he
ought not, or that he likes it more than is commonly
done, or in a way that is not right— the profligate being one
who goes to excess in all these respects. For he is fond
of some abominable things which he ought not to be fond
of, and of others, which are right enough in themselves, he
is fonder than he ought to be or than people generally are.

We see, then, that excess in pleasures is profligate and
blameworthy. Looking at it from the side of pain we do
not call a man temperate for facing pains as the courageous
man does, nor, again, profligate for failing to do so. But
we call a man profligate for feeling more pain than he ought
at missing a pleasure (the pleasure gives him pain !), and
temperate when he feels no pain in going without or in
refraining from a pleasure.

The profligate, then, lusts after everything that gives
pleasure, or that gives it in the highest degree, and is so led
away by his lusts that he chooses such things in preference
to everything else. And so he is tortured with pain both
when he fails to get them and when he merely lusts after
them (for desire itself involves pain), absurd as it seems to
be tortured for the sake of pleasure.

Those who are defective on the side of pleasure, and take
less delight in things than they ought to, are extremely rare.
Insensibility of this kind is inhuman, even the brutes dis
tinguishing different kinds of food, liking some, disliking
others. A being who took no pleasure in anything, but
found everything alike, would be very far from being a man ;
there is, indeed, no name for such a being, as he is never
found.

The temperate man is moderate in all these things. He
takes no pleasure in those things in which the profligate
most delights, rather despising them, nor generally in

26l

IIL XI- TEMPERANCE.

things that are wrong, nor very much in the pleasures of
touch and taste at all. He feels no pain in being without
such things, nor does he desire them. If he does, it is in a
moderate degree, not more than he ought, nor at the wron-
time, nor wrongly in any way. But things which, besides
sing pleasant, make for health or good condition, he
will desire in a moderate degree and in the right way
Other things, too, he will desire in so far as they are not
injurious or incompatible with his idea of honour or beyond
his means. The man who desires them in spite of every
thing, loves his pleasures more than it is fitting he should;
whereas the temperate man feels towards them as reason
directs. . . .

[xii.] The term "profligate" or " unchastened" is applied
also to children when they are naughty; for there is a
certain similarity between the profligate and the naughty
child. Which of these uses is the primary one we need not
inquire, though it is clear that the later use must come from
the earlier. But the metaphor itself is apt enough, as every
thing that is drawn in the direction of what is disgraceful,
and grows apace, needs chastening and correction, and
these traits are more strongly marked in children and in
the appetites than in anything else. For children live by
impulse and appetite, and the desire for pleasure is most
pronounced in them. If, then, this element is not obedient
and subject to the governing power it will go to great
lengths, inasmuch as unreasonable people have an insatiable
longing for pleasure regardless of its source, and the indul
gence of desire fosters the innate tendency, until, perhaps,
waxing powerful and violent, the desires cast reason out
altogether. And so it is well that they should be few and
moderate, and in no respect antagonistic to reason. (This is
what we mean by being amenable and " chastened.") And

262 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. III. xn.

just as a child should live according to the directions of his
teacher, so the appetites should be subject to reason.
9 Hence the appetites of the temperate man must be in
harmony with reason. For the aim of both is ideal excel
lence : the temperate man desiring the right things in the
right way and at the right time, and reason enjoining the
same.

IX.
IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL.

[vn. i.] We must now say something of incontinence
and also of continence, treating them as. neither specifically
the same as virtue and vice, nor yet as generically different.
. . . Now, it is commonly thought that the continent man is
one who stands by his reckonings, and the incontinent one
who loses hold of them, and that the incontinent man knows
that an action is bad and yet is impelled by passion to do
it; while the continent man, knowing that his desires are
bad, is impelled by reason to resist their lead.

[ii.] But it may be asked how can a man while judging
rightly yet act incontinently? Some philosophers have
maintained that it is impossible if he really knows what he
is doing. Thus Socrates thought that it would be strange
if, when he had real knowledge, a man should be mastered
and dragged about by something else, like a slave. Socrates
indeed contested the whole position, maintaining that there
was no such thing as incontinence. No one acts contrary to
what is best when he knows it. It is only ignorance that
makes him do it.

Now, this doctrine evidently conflicts with experience, and
with regard to the passion which sways the incontinent man
if it really is a case of ignorance we must ask what kind of
ignorance it is. For it is clear that he who acts incon
tinently does not think it the best thing before the passion
seizes him.

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VII. n.

3 There are others, again, who partly agree and partly differ
from Socrates. They admit that nothing can prevail over
knowledge, but they do not admit that a man never acts
contrary so what he thinks best, and therefore maintain that
when the incontinent man is overcome by his pleasures he
has merely an opinion, but not knowledge. . .
i [iii.] We have then to inquire whether the incontinent
act with or without knowledge, and what knowledge here
3 means. . . . The argument that it is true opinion and not
knowledge against which they act incontinently, is irrelevant,
for sometimes a man who merely has an opinion has no
doubt about it, but thinks he has exact knowledge. .
$ Knowledge, however, is used in two different senses : we
say that a man knows when he possesses knowledge but
fails to use it, and again when he uses it. Possessing know
ledge, therefore, of what is best to be done which is not present
to consciousness, will be one thing; possessing knowledge
which is consciously present will be quite another. Only in
the latter sense will it seem strange that a man should act
contrary to knowledge.

6 But again, rational judgment is founded on two premises,
and there is therefore nothing to prevent a man knowing
both, yet acting contrary to his knowledge if he uses the
universal only, but not the particular. For all conduct is
concerned with particular cases.

10 Moreover, universals themselves differ. . . . When, then,
you have on one side the universal forbidding you to taste,
and on the other the universal that "all sweet things are
pleasant," with the particular " this is sweet," and the latter
is effectively present and supported by appetite ; while the
former bids you avoid, appetite urges you to take it, for
appetite tends to pass into muscular movement. Thus there
is a sense in which it is under the influence of reason and

VII. in. IMPERFECT SELF-CONTROL. 265

opinion that a man acts incontinently — an opinion, however,
which is opposed to right reason, not in itself, but only
accidentally, inasmuch as it is the appetite and not the
opinion that is really opposed to it. This is the reason
why brutes cannot be incontinent : they have no universal
judgments, but only images and memories of particulars. . . .
[x.] The incontinent man, then, has knowledge, not as
one who both knows and uses his knowledge, but as one
who is asleep or drunk. He acts voluntarily (for in a sense
he knows both what he is doing and what his object is in
doing it), and yet he is not a bad man. For his moral pur
pose is good, so that he is only half bad. Nor is he unjust,
for he does not act from design, seeing that he sometimes
swerves from his resolutions and sometimes from melancholy
makes no resolutions at all. The incontinent man, then, is
like a city which always decrees the right thing and has
excellent laws, but never carries them into execution, as
Anaxandrides satirically says —

" So willed the State that nothing recked of laws."

The bad man, on the contrary, is like a city that carries its
laws into execution, but whose laws are bad.

! I

266 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VI. I.

X.

THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE.

[vi. i.j IN dividing the virtues of the soul we saw that
one class are virtues of the moral character, another of
the intellect. We have already discussed the moral virtues.
Let us now go on to the other class, glancing first at the
psychological basis of the distinctions to be noticed.

We have already seen that the soul consists of two parts —
the rational and the irrational. We must now make a similar
division of the rational part, and note that it also is twofold.
There is, first, the faculty by which we apprehend those
elements of reality which depend upon unalterable prin
ciples ; and, secondly, that by which we apprehend contingent
reality. For since there is a certain similarity and affinity
between knowledge and its object, we must suppose that
generically different faculties of the soul take cognizance of
objects which are generically different. We may call the
former of these the scientific, the latter the calculative reason.
For deliberation and calculation are the same thing, and no
one deliberates about things that cannot be otherwise than
they are, so that the calculative reason may be considered
one part of the rational element in the soul. Our problem
now is to inquire what each of these faculties is in its
highest development, for this will be its virtue or excellence,
— a virtue which we must never forget is relative to its
proper function. . . .

[vii.] " Wisdom " is a term we apply to those who have
consummate skill in the arts, as when we call Phidias wise
in sculpture, or Polyclitus in portraiture, meaning nothing

VI. vii. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 267

more by wisdom than excellence in a particular art. But 2
there are some people whom we consider wise in an absolute
sense, and without reference to any particular thing. This is
the sense in which Homer uses the term in the Margites —

" Him have the gods given wisdom neither in spade nor in plough
share,
Neither in aught whatsoe'er."

Wisdom in this sense clearly stands for the highest kind of
scientific knowledge. The wise man is he who is familiar
not only with what may be deduced from first principles, but
with the truth of first principles themselves. So that wisdom
or philosophy may be defined as the combination of intuitive
reason and science, or as scientific knowledge of the most
precious things, with the crown of perfection, so to speak, upon
it. For surely it would be absurd to call the political faculty
or the practical reason the highest of our faculties, unless we
are prepared to maintain that man is the highest product of
creation.

Now, if what is good and wholesome is one thing for men, /
another thing for fishes, while whiteness and straightness
preserve the same character wherever they are found, there
must be many different kinds of prudence, but only one kind
of wisdom. For we call the being which has a good eye for
its own affairs prudent, and are ready to trust them to its
charge. Hence, we apply the term " prudent " to some
animals — those, namely, which are observed to exhibit a
certain amount of foresight in the conduct of their lives. It
is clear, moreover, that wisdom and statesmanship are
different from one another. For if we were to call know
ledge of individual advantage wisdom, there must be many
kinds of it, as there is no one science concerned with what
is good for every species of animal, any more than there is
one art of healing for all created beings. And if it be argued

2°° NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VI. vn.

that man is high above all the rest of the animate world,
this does not alter the case. There are other things in the
universe of a nature far more divine than his, as, for example,

5 the starry heavens of which the universe is built. From all
which it is clear that wisdom is a combination of science and
the speculative reason, directed to the noblest objects in
creation. And this is why we call Anaxagoras, Thales, and
other philosophers wise but not prudent, seeing that they are
ignorant of what is to their own advantage. We say that
the knowledge which they possess is strange, wonderful,
recondite, superhuman, but useless because they do not
study what is good for man.

6 The field of prudence, on the other hand, is human
affairs and things on which counsel may be taken ; for it is
the chief function of the prudent man to take good counsel,
and no one takes counsel upon what is eternally fixed, nor
about anything which does not involve an end in the sense
of a good realizable in action. To be of good counsel in
the full and proper sense of the term is to be able, after due

7 reckoning, to strike the highest practical good of man. It
would, however, be a mistake to suppose that prudence is
concerned with general principles alone : it implies a know
ledge of particulars as well, seeing that it is a practical virtue,
and the practical is always something particular. Hence it
sometimes happens that, on the same principle as experience
in general may be better than theory, one who has no
theoretic knowledge is better in practice than those who
have it. To take a simple example, suppose one knew
that light flesh is digestible and wholesome, but did not
know what kinds of flesh are light, he would fail in matters
of diet ; while the man who only knew that the flesh of fowl
is light and wholesome would succeed. Prudence, then,
being concerned with conduct, implies a knowledge of the

VI. vii. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 269

particular as well as of the universal — in fact, the former
is the more important element, though it can never dispense
with controlling principles.

[viii.] Prudence and statesmanship or politics are the
same faculty manifested in different ways. As applied to
affairs of state its highest form is the legislative faculty.
On the other hand, the species which is concerned
with details of administration has appropriated the generic
name of politics. This latter manifests itself in deliberation
and action, for it aims at coming to a resolution or verdict,
and resolution precedes action. This is the reason why the
name politician is sometimes applied exclusively to those
who exercise this faculty, for they alone are actively engaged,
like craftsmen, in the conduct of affairs.

Prudence in the most general sense has several forms,
(i) First and foremost it means the management of our own
particular affairs. It is to this species that the generic term
prudence or insight is commonly applied. Of the other
forms, besides the legislative faculty already mentioned, we
have (2) the science of household management and (3) that
of state management, the last being again divided into the
(a) deliberative and (b) the judicial faculty.* . . . Yet we

* The following table may make this classification clear : —
Prudence in widest sense.

J I "I

Prudence (in narrower Household manage- State management =

sense of care for ments (Economics). Politics (in wider
individual good). sense).
. J

Legislative faculty = Administrative
Politics (in narrower faculty,

sense). j

Deliberative. Judicial.

27O NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VI. vm.

must not suppose that it is possible to separate our in
dividual affairs from those of the family or the community
to which we belong, or that it is clear, apart from special
study, how we ought to administer them. . . .
i [ix.] We must next * ask what Good Counsel means. . . .

3 As taking bad counsel means to be wrong, and taking good
counsel to be right, good counsel must clearly be a kind of
Tightness.

4 Now, there are many kinds of Tightness, and plainly
good counsel does not include every kind. For example,
the incontinent or the vicious man will attain what he
wants by calculation, using right counsel though reaping
only great evil ; but to be of good counsel is held to be a
good, for it is only a particular kind that is called " good "

5 counsel, viz. that which reaches a good end. Again, the
end may be good and still the reasoning false. We may
know the end we ought to aim at, but err as to the means
by a false use of the middle term in the minor premise, j
So that even when the conclusion is right, we can only speak

6 of good counsel if the reasons are right also. Again, one
man may reach a right conclusion slowly, another quickly.
So that we require to add a still further qualification, and
define good counsel as right thinking where our interests
are concerned, end and means and time being what they
ought to be.

7 Finally, good counsel may be used in an absolute sense,
or relatively to some particular end. Good counsel, in the
former sense, is right thinking as to the means of realizing
the supreme end of life ; in the latter, right thinking as to the
means of realizing some particular end. Granting, then, that

* Taking up c. vii. § 6 (above, p. 268), where it is shown that good
counsel is an element in prudence.

t See Grant's example, quoted p. 142.

VI. ix. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 2/1

to take good counsel is characteristic of the prudent man,
good counsel must be denned as right judgment as to the
proper means of attaining the end which Prudence truly con
ceives.

[x.] Intelligence and Good Intelligence, with their co-
relatives intelligent and of good intelligence, are identical
neither with science and opinion generally (if they were
every one would be intelligent) nor with any one of the
special sciences, e.g. medicine, which deals with health, or
geometry, whose subject is magnitudes. Nor is intelligence
concerned with universal laws, nor among particular events
with those of every kind ; but only with those which suggest
practical difficulties and upon which counsel may be taken.
Intelligence is thus applied to the same objects as prudence,
but is a different faculty. Prudence issues commands : it
aims at deciding what ought, and what ought not to be done ;
whereas intelligence merely sits by and judges. Intelli
gence means neither the possession nor the acquisition of
prudence. But just as the learner is said to show intelligence
when he applies the knowledge he has been taught by another,
so good intelligence consists in applying what one knows to
judge of the statements of another upon questions that fall
within the sphere of prudence, and withal to judge rightly —
good and right being here identical. From the use of
intelligence as shown in learning comes the use of the word
as applied to the man of good intelligence generally, seeing
that we often use " understanding " and " showing intelli
gence " as convertible terms.

[xi.] What we call Sense — the quality of people whom
we describe as sensible or having sense — is the acquired
faculty of coming to a right decision on matters of equity.
The ordinary usage of language supports this definition.
For we call the equitable man a sensible person, and identify

2/2 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VI. xi.

equity with common-sense in certain matters — common-
sense being the sense that enables us to come to a right
and equitable decision, i.e. one which is in harmony with
the truth.

All these qualities find their centre, as we might suppose,
in the same type of character, for we ascribe good sense and
intelligence and prudence and reason to the same people,
saying of them that they are reasonable as well as prudent
and intelligent. They all imply the power of dealing with
circumstances and handlihg details : intelligence, good sense,
and common sense being the power of coming to a decision
on matters that fall within the province of prudence, and
equity being a property common to all good men in their
relations to others. . . .

We have now defined the nature of prudence and
wisdom and the province of each, and have seen that
each is the excellence of a separate element of mind,
[xii.] The question, however, may be raised — what is the
use of them ? For wisdom, in the speculative sense, is not
concerned with the conditions of human happiness, or, indeed,
with anything that is produced. Prudence, it is true, is
concerned with happiness, but it may still be asked why it
should be necessary as a condition of it ? The province of
prudence, we have seen, is what is just and noble and good
for man, i.e. all that it is characteristic of a good man to do.
But if, as we have seen, the virtues are trained habits, we
shall get no more help in conduct from theoretic knowledge
than we should in the healthy and normal functions of the
body (in so far, at any rate, as these are the manifestations
of a sound state of health, and not themselves the causes of
health). In the case of the latter we should be none the
better for possessing a scientific knowledge of the principles

VI. xn. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES : PRUDENCE. 2/3

of medicine or gymnastics. And if it be said that we require 2
prudence, not to enable us to do good acts, but to make us
good, it may still be objected that it is not much use to those
who are good already, nor even to those who are not. For
it will be all the same whether one has prudence one's self
or follows the prudent counsels of another. It will do just
as well to take the advice of another, as we do in matters of
health, where, if we wish to be well, we do not require to
have recourse to medical study. There is, moreover, the 3
further difficulty that it would be absurd that prudence, being
inferior to wisdom, should be master over it, as we should
have to suppose, if, as the producer of happiness, it issues
directions. These difficulties, which we have hitherto merely
been stating, we must now try to solve.

In the first place, then, we must note that these qualities, 4
being virtues or excellencies each of a particular element of
the soul, must needs be desirable in themselves, even though
neither of them produces any results. But, in the second 5
place, they do, as a matter of fact, produce results. Wisdom,
for example, produces happiness, not, indeed, as a know
ledge of medicine produces health, but as a healthy condition
produces it. For since it is an element in virtue as a whole,
the possession and exercise of it must make a man happy.
For the full performance of his function, moreover, man 6
requires prudence and moral virtue, virtue securing that the
end, and prudence that the means should be right. . . In 7
order, however, fully to meet the objection that prudence
does not help us in the practice of what is just and noble,
we must carry the question a step further back.

We have already seen that a man may do just things (e.g.
when he does what the law enjoins against his will, or from
ignorance, or for any reason other than the goodness of the
act itself), and yet not be a just man, even though he does

T

2/4 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VI. xii.

what he ought, and all that may be expected of a good
man. On the other hand, if a man's action is the outcome
of a particular state of mind and character, i.e. if it is the
outcome of moral choice, and is done for its own sake, the

8 man, we allow, is good. Now, what makes the choice of
the end right is moral virtue, but what enables us to
discern the proper means to its attainment is not virtue, but
some other faculty. Let us dwell on this point a momentfin
order to make it clear.

9 There is a faculty which we call cleverness. It is the
faculty which enables a man to find the means to any
particular end, and so to attain the end itself. If, then, the
end is noble, the faculty is a virtue ; if the end is bad, it

10 is roguery. Hence we sometimes call even prudent men
clever rogues. Prudence, however, is something different
from cleverness, though it cannot exist without it. What
gives character to this " eye of the soul," as we have already
said, and as is indeed obvious, is moral virtue. For the
reasonings we apply to conduct start from some principle, viz.
" the end, or what is best, is so and so " (whatever it may
be, for sake of the argument we may call it anything). But
only the good man views this end in the proper light, while
vice distorts and falsifies the principles of conduct. From
which it clearly follows that a man cannot be prudent or
have insight unless he is good.

i [xiii.] Let us now return to the question of the nature
of goodness. For moral virtue proper stands to natural virtue
as prudence stands to cleverness. Every one is agreed that
there is a sense in which all moral qualities may be regarded
as natural endowments. Justice, temperance, courage, and
all the other virtues manifest themselves from the moment
of our birth. Yet goodness in the full and proper sense,
which is the object of our search, is something different

VI. xin. THE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES: PRUDENCE. 275

from this, and is attained on other terms. For these innate
capacities for virtue are found in children, and even in
brutes, but, when unenlightened by reason, are plainly
mischievous. It is at any rate true that just as strong
bodies when they move blindly fall heavily, through not
having the use of their eyes, so natural virtue is apt to
come to grief. On the other hand, if enlightened by 2
reason it is the most promising of all. In this case the
natural faculty will develop into the fully formed virtue
which it previously resembled. So that just as on the
intellectual side we have the two forms cleverness and
prudence, so on the moral side we have natural and fully
developed virtue, and of these the latter cannot exist with
out prudence.

This explains why some have held that the virtues are all 3
forms of prudence, and how Socrates was partly right and
partly wrong in his theory. He was wrong in holding that
all virtue is a form of prudence, but right in holding that no
virtue can exist without prudence. This is shown in the 4
common definition of virtue. For every one in defining it,
after stating that it falls under the head of a habitual
attitude, adds that it is the right and reasonable attitude,
right here meaning wise and prudent. So that common
opinion seems to have an intuitive perception of the truth
that such an attitude or formed habit, viz. the prudent one,
is what we understand by virtue. It requires correction, 5
however, in one small respect. For virtue is not only the
right and reasonable attitude, but the attitude which leads to
right and reasonable choice, and right and reasonable choice
in these matters is what we mean by prudence. We may
say, then, that whereas Socrates held that the virtues were
forms of reason (for he held that they were all forms of
knowledge), our theory amounts to saying that they are all

2/6 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VI. xm.

reasonable. It is plain, therefore, from all that we have
said, that it is impossible to be good in the proper sense
of the term without prudence, or prudent without moral
goodness.

We are thus able, moreover, to meet the argument that
might be brought to prove that the virtues are separate
and independent of one another on the ground that nature
may not have been equally generous to the same individual
with respect to all of them, having given him one but
withheld another. This, we shall reply, is quite possible
with respect to what we have called natural virtues, but it is
not possible with respect to the virtues which constitute
goodness in the full sense. For given the single virtue of
prudence all the virtues necessarily follow from it.

We thus see, in the first place, that even though it does
not assist practice, prudence is still necessary as the ex
cellence of an essential part of our nature ; and, secondly,
that there can be no right choice without both prudence
and virtue, seeing that the latter secures the choice of the
right end, and the former the choice of the right means to
its attainment.

With regard to the objection that we thus make prudence
master over wisdom, and so over the superior element of our
nature, this is not true, any more than that we make the
science of medicine master over health. Prudence does not
employ wisdom in its service : it provides for its exercise.
It dictates directions for its advantage but not for its
guidance. To assert the contrary is as though one were to
say that the science of statesmanship governs the gods
because it gives directions about everything in the State,
and about Divine Worship among other things.

277

XI.

WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY.

[x. vii.] IF happiness consists in the exercise of virtue,
we may suppose that the highest happiness consists in the
exercise of the highest virtue or excellence, and this will he
the excellence of the noblest faculty. Now, this faculty —
he it reason or something else — which seems naturally to
command and take the lead, and to he concerned with all
that is noble and divine, whether it be itself divine, or
merely the divinest part of us, is that faculty the exercise
of which, according to its own proper excellence, will con
stitute perfect happiness. We have already seen that
Contemplation answers to this description. And this would
appear to correspond not only with what has been already
said, but with what we know to be true.

For, in the first place, this form of activity is the highest
of which we are capable, reason being the highest of the
faculties with which we are endowed, and its object the
highest of knowable realities. In the second place, it is
the most continuous, for we can keep it up longer than any
other action. Thirdly, we hold that pleasure is one of the
elements in happiness, and philosophy is admittedly the
pleasantest of the activities in which human excellence
manifests itself. The pleasures of philosophy at least appear
to be wonderfully pure and reliable, nor indeed is it surprising

2/8 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X. vn.

if the life of the connoisseur is pleasanter than that of the
learner. Fourthly, the self-sufficiency people speak of belongs
to the life of contemplation more than to any other. The
philosopher cannot indeed, any more than the just man or any
one else, dispense with the necessaries of life ; but when a due
measure of these has been provided, the just man requires
other people towards whom, and together with whom, he
may act justly ; and similarly the temperate, the brave man,
and all the rest. But the thinker is able to pursue his studies
in solitude, and the more of a thinker he is, the more
capable he is of doing so. True, he is greatly assisted by
the co-operation of others, yet he is more self-sufficient
than any other. Fifthly, philosophy alone would appear to
be loved for its own sake. For there need be no results
further than the exercise of the faculty of thought itself;
whereas in the field of practical activity we always achieve
(more or less) some result over and above the action itself.
Finally, happiness appears to imply leisure. We engage
in business that we may have leisure, as we wage war that we
may have peace. Now, the practical virtues find the field
of their exercise in war or politics, which cannot be said to
be leisurely employments, least of all war. For no one
chooses to go to war or prepares for war for the sake of war.
Any one who set his friends at enmity with one another
for the sake of the battles and slaughter that would ensue,
would be a most bloodthirsty villain. Even politics is
anything but a leisurely occupation, seeing that, over and
above the business itself, it brings power and honour, or at
least a happiness to the politician himself and to his fellow-
citizens which is different from political activity, and is
treated separately by us obviously because it is something
different. War and politics, then, surpass in grandeur and
nobility every other field which calls forth high qualities of

X. vii. WISDOM, OR PHILOSOPHY. 2/9

character • but they lack leisure, and are means to a further
end rather than ends in themselves. On the other hand,
the exercise of reason in philosophy appears to possess a
higher dignity, is no mere means to a further end, brings
with it a peculiar pleasure of its own (which also stimulates
to increased activity), is self-sufficient, leisurely, inexhaustible
(so far as anything human can be inexhaustible), in a word
possesses all the attributes we ascribe to the happy life.

From all this it follows that it is in the exercise of reason 8
that man's completest happiness is found, provided that we
add a complete term of years, for happiness is incompatible
with any kind of incompleteness. Such a life may be
something more than human. It will express not mere
human nature, but the divine element within it, the
exercise of which as far surpasses the exercise of the other
faculties, however excellent, as this divine element itself
surpasses composite human nature. If, then, as compared
with ordinary human nature reason be something divine,
the life of reason, as compared with the ordinary life of
man, may also be called divine. Nevertheless, we shall
refuse to listen to those who advise us, being human
and mortal, to mind things that are human and mortal. On
the contrary, as far as possible, we ought to try to put off
our mortality and do all we can to live the life to which the
highest element in us points. For though it be but a small
part of us, yet in power and value it far surpasses all the
others. Moreover, it would seem to be the real self in 9
each of us, since it is sovereign over all and better than all.
And accordingly it would be strange if we were not to choose
the life of our own true selves, but of something other than
ourselves.

The conclusion at which we have now arrived agrees,
moreover, with the principle we have already laid down,

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X. vn.

that to every creature the best and the pleasantest is
that which is naturally proper to it. Accordingly, the
life of reason may be expected to be the best and the
pleasantest to man, seeing that it is the truest expression
of himself. This life, then, will be the most truly happy
one.

( 281 )

XII.

FRIENDSHIP.
I.

[vm. i.] WE must next discuss Friendship. For Friend
ship is one of the virtues, or at any rate implies virtue.
Moreover, it is one of the prime necessities of life. No
one would desire to live if he had no friends, even although
he were endowed with every other good gift. The rich and
powerful require friends even more than others. For why
should a man desire good fortune of this kind if it did not
bring with it the power to benefit others, a power which
finds its chief and most laudable exercise in his relation to
his friends? Or, again, how would fortune be kept and
preserved if it were not for friends, seeing that the greater
it is, the more precarious? In poverty, again, and in every
kind of misfortune, we consider our friends the only refuge.
In youth we need them to keep us from error ; in old age
to tend us and to do for us what we no longer can do for
ourselves; in our prime we need them as allies in noble
actions— " shoulder to shoulder," as they say— giving us
power both to think and act. Friendship has, moreover, a
natural basis in the feeling of parent for offspring and
offspring for parent— not only among human beings, but
among birds and most of the lower animals — and in the
feeling which members of the same race, and especially of

282 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VIII. i.

the human race, bear to one another. This explains why
we praise lovers of their kind. Indeed you may see, even
in travelling abroad, how kinship brings men together and
makes them friends. Friendship, again, is the bond of civic
life, and is considered by legislators to be more important
than justice. For concord is akin to friendship, and is what
legislators chiefly aim at securing. Dissension, on the other
hand, they seek more than anything else to banish as an
enemy. If citizens be friends there is no need of justice,
whereas if they are just they still need friendship as well.
Moreover, equity, which is the highest form of justice, is
the very spirit of friendship.

But not only is friendship a necessity of our nature, it is
also an element in the noble life. For we praise those who
love their friends, and consider it a noble thing to have
many friends. Some even think that a good man is the
same as a friend.

Nevertheless, there are not a few difficult questions which
arise in connection with friendship. Thus, some people
hold that it is founded on similarity, and that those who
resemble one another make friends — whence the sayings,
" like to like," " birds of a feather," and so on. Others,
again, maintain on the contrary that " potter hates potter,"
and that those of a trade never agree. . . . Again, we may
ask whether friendship can exist among any kind of persons,
or is only possible between good people, and whether there
is only one form of friendship or several. . . .

II.

i [ii.] It will help us to answer these questions if we know
what kinds of things are likeable. For we only like what

VIII. IT.

FRIENDSHIP. 283

is likeable, and this seems to be of three kinds— what is
good, what is pleasant, and what is useful. . . .

[Hi.] We have, then, three kinds of friendship corre- i
spending to these three objects of liking, each of which may
be the basis of a reciprocal affection which is known to
both. For those who are friends desire for one another the
good which is the source of their liking for one another.
Those whose friendship, then, is founded on utility do not
love their friends for what they are in themselves, but only
for the advantage which they receive from them. And the
same is true of those whose friendship is based on pleasure.
People do not love an amusing companion because he is a
man of a particular character, but because he gives them
pleasure. When, therefore, friendship is founded on utility, 2
f men love their friends for the advantage they bring ; when
it is founded upon pleasure, for the pleasure. They do not
love them for being what they are in themselves, but for
being useful or pleasant. Such friendship may therefore be
said to be accidental. A man is loved not for what he
is, but for what he brings— advantage or pleasure.

Such Friendships are easily dissolved, as people change 3
in these respects, and if they are no longer pleasant or useful
to one another they cease to be friends. Thus what is for a
man's advantage is never the same, but changes from time
to time. When, therefore, the motive of the friendship is
gone, the friendship also is destroyed, since it only existed
for this particular object. This kind of friendship exists 4
chiefly between elderly people — for at that time of life a man
looks to utility rather than to pleasure— and between young
and middle-aged men who have an eye to their own advan
tage. Such persons do not as a rule live together; some
times even disliking one another's society. Accordingly,
they have no desire for such close intercourse unless they

284 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VIII. in.

are useful to one another, seeing that they only find pleasure
in one another so far as they entertain the hope of benefit.
The motive of the friendship of young people, on the
other hand, is pleasure. Young people live by feeling, and
have a main eye to their own pleasure and to the present
moment. But pleasures at that age alter rapidly. And as
friendship changes with the things that give them pleasure,
it is quickly come and quickly gone with their friendships.'
Young people, moreover, easily fall in love, and love for
the most part is passionate, and has pleasure for its object.
Hence they make friends, and soon throw them over,
changing many times in the same day. Friends of this
kind, however, choose to spend their time together, and to
live together. For it is thus that they gain the object of
their friendship.

The friendship of the good, and of those who have the
same virtues, is perfect friendship. For such people equally
wish each other good in so far as they are good (it is their
essential character to be good), and those who wish well
to their friends for their own sake are friends in the highest
sense. For they do so on account of what they are in them
selves, and not on account of any accidental quality. Such
friendship therefore endures so long as each retains his
character, and virtue is a lasting thing. Moreover, each is
not only good absolutely, but good to his friend, good people
being both absolutely good, and good and useful to one
another. So, too. of the pleasure they give. They are
pleasant both in themselves and to each other. For each
man finds his own actions and those that resemble them
pleasant, and the actions of the good are the same or
7 similar. Such friendship, as we might expect, is lasting.
For all the conditions of friendships meet in it. ...

The love and friendship of such people, then, is the truest

VIII. in. FRIENDSHIP. 285

and best. But, as we might expect, it is rare, as such 8
people are scarce; moreover, it requires time and familiar
intercourse. We can only know one another, as the proverb
says, after we have eaten the proper amount of salt together ;
• nor can people accept' one another as friends, or properly
be friends, until each has shown himself lovable to the other,
and has gained his confidence. Those who quickly come 9
to act as friends to one another may wish to be friends, but
they are not really so unless they are not only lovable but
know one another to be so. The wish for friendship is
of rapid growth, but friendship itself is not.

[iv.] This kind of friendship, then, is perfect and i
complete, both in point of time and in all other respects,
each of the friends rendering to each the same or similar
services— as ought to be the case with friends. . . . The 3
friendship of good men, too, is the only kind that is proof
against calumny, as a man will not easily believe anything
of a man who has been long proved by him. In such
friendships, too, we find mutual faith, respect for each
other's rights, and everything else that we value in true
friendship. In the other kinds, on the contrary, there is no
security against any form of wrong. . . .

[v.] And just as in the case of the virtues generally we i
sometimes say a man's character is good, at other times
that his actions are good, so in the case of friendship.
Those who live together delight in one another's society,
and perform friendly offices ; those, on the other hand, who
are asleep or separated from one another locally are capable
Of performing friendly acts, but do not actually perform them.
For locality merely destroys the active offices of friendship,
but not friendship itself. On the other hand, if the absence
be for long, even friendship is forgotten, whence the saying—
"Many indeed are the friends whom distance and silence estranges."

286 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. VIII. v.

4 Friendship differs from affection in that the latter is a
feeling, the former a trained habit of mind. We have
affection for lifeless, not less than for living things ; but we
return the love of friends by choice, and choice is determined
by character and trained habit. Moreover, we wish well to
our friends for their own sake, not because of the affection
we feel for them, but because we are the men to do it. ...

3 [viii.] Friendship, again, consists in loving rather than
in being loved. A proof of this is the delight that mothers
have in loving their children. For a mother will give her
children to others to nurse, and love them because she knows
them, not seeking to be loved in return (if both are impossi
ble), but satisfied to see them faring well, and loving them
even though they are too unconscious to repay any of the

4 debt of kindness they owe a mother. And as friendship
consists more in loving than in being loved, and praise is
given to those who love their friends, to love may be
said to be the special excellence of friends, so that when
people love one another for their worth they are stable
themselves, and their friendship is a stable one.

i [ix.] Friendship and justice, as we saw at the outset,
cover the same field, and exist in the same people. In every
association a particular kind of justice is required, corre
sponding to a particular kind of friendship. Fellow-
voyagers, at any rate, and fellow-soldiers address one
another as friends; and so do the members of all other
forms of association. To whatever extent they are asso
ciated, to that extent we shall find friendship existing
between them, for to that extent there must be justice. . . .

5 But all these associations are subordinate to the associa
tion of citizens as such, which looks not to the interests of

6 the moment, but to the interests of life as a whole. . . . The
political association therefore stands to the others, each

VIII. ix. FRIENDSHIP. 287

with its appropriate form of friendship, as the whole to the
parts. . . .

III.

[ix. iv.] Friendly relations to others and the charac- i
teristics by which we define friendship find their explanation
in the relations of a man to himself. A friend is one who
wishes well, and does well, or what appears to he well, by
another for that other's sake ; or, again, who wishes long life
to his friend for his own sake, just as mothers do to their
children, or friends who have had a difference do to one
another. According to another view, he is one who spends
his time with another and likes the same things, or who
sympathizes with his friend's joys and sorrows, which also is
a marked feature of the maternal relation, and in one form
or another is the specific attribute of friendship. But the 2
good man feels all this towards himself (though other people
also feel it in so far as they think themselves good, virtue
and the good man being, as we have said, everywhere the
standard). For he is at one with himself, and desires the 3
same things with every part of his soul, wishing for himself
both what is and what seems good, and doing good to himself
(it being the mark of a good man to make a business of good),
all for his own sake, i.e. for the sake of the rational part of
him, which is his real self, wishing also that he may live and
be preserved, and especially that his reason may live. For 4
mere existence is good to the good, and every man desires
goods for himself, though no one would choose to have all
goods on condition that he should be other than he is. God,
indeed, has all good, but only in virtue of being what he is.
And a man's reason may be said to make a man either
wholly or in chief part what he is. Such' a man, again, wishes 5

288 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. IX. iv.

to spend his life with himself, for his own company is pleasant
to him. The memory, too, of his past life is happy and his
hopes for the future are good, and because they are good are
sweet. Moreover, his mind is stored with fine thoughts.')
He sympathizes to the full with himself in sorrow and in joy,
the same things at all times giving him pleasure and pain,
instead of different things at different times. For he is not
the man, as we might say, to change his mind on this point.
Since all these characteristics mark the good man's relations
to himself, and since his relations to his friend are the same
as his relations to himself (for a friend is a second self),
friendship may be defined by means of one or other of these
characteristics, and friends may be said to be persons in
whom these characteristics exist. . . .

But the said characteristics appear to be found in most
men, even though they are not the best sort. We may
therefore suppose that such persons share them in so far as
they feel satisfied with themselves, and suppose themselves
to be good, seeing that not only are they not found in any
one who is utterly worthless and impious, but there is not
even a suggestion of them. And we might almost say that
all really bad men lack them. For such men are at war
with themselves : craving one thing and wishing another,
like the incontinent man, choosing what is pleasant and
hurtful, instead of what they see to be good for them. At
other times they are prevented by cowardice and sloth from
doing what they think is best. Sometimes those who have
committed a number of crimes, and are detested for
their wickedness, even come to hate life, and seek to destroy
themselves. The bad, moreover, desire the company of I
others, but avoid their own. For there is much that '
is painful to them in their memories of the past, and the
anticipations they have of the future when they are by

IX. iv. FRIENDSHIP. 289

themselves are likewise fraught with pain — from all which
the company of others offers an escape. Having nothing
lovable about them they have, moreover, no friendly feel
ings towards themselves. They therefore feel no sympathy
either with their own joys or sorrows, for their soul is torn
by faction, one part of it because of its viciousness feeling
sorrow at having to abstain, another part feeling pleasure,
and thus dragging them hither and thither, and nearly rend
ing them in pieces. ... If such a condition is consum- 10
mately miserable, the moral is to shun vice, and strive after
virtue with all one's might. For in this way we shall at
once have friendly feelings towards ourselves and become
the friends of others. . . .

[vi.] One characteristic of friendship" seems to be unanimity, i
which is thus something different from agreement in
opinion. For we may agree with people whom we do
not even know. Nor do we call people who hold the
same views upon anything unanimous, e.g. on questions in
astronomy (agreement on these subjects being no proof of
friendship). On the other hand, we say that cities are
unanimous when the citizens are of one mind on questions
of public advantage, e.g. when they agree upon a policy,
and carry out the decision they have arrived at in common.
It is on questions of conduct, then, that unanimity exists 2
between people. The question must be one of some
importance, and the advantage such as both or all the
parties concerned may share. Thus a country is of one
mind when all the citizens are agreed that the public offices
should be elective, or that an alliance should be entered
into with a neighbouring state, or that a particular minister
should come into power at a time when he is himself willing
to do so. On the other hand, when each wishes office for
himself, as in the Phcenissae of Euripides, we have faction. . . .

2QO NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. IX. vi.

Unanimity would thus seem to be friendship among citizens,
or, to use the common phrase, political friendship. For it
exists on questions of the public advantage and on all
that touches life. And this is the kind of unanimity that
subsists between good men. For they are of one mind, both
with themselves and with others, standing, so to speak, on
the same ground, and having wishes that are stable, and do
not ebb and flow like the Euripus. They desire what is
just and for the public advantage, and unite their efforts to
attain it. Bad men, on the contrary, cannot be unanimous,
except for a short time, any more than they can be friends.
They try to get more than their share of the advantages that
are going, and to take less than their share of the work and
public service, and as each seeks an advantage for himself
he keeps his eye on his neighbour, and acts as a check upon
him ; if he fails to do so the public interest is sacrificed. They
are thus in a constant state of sedition, trying to force one
another to do what is right, but unwilling to do it themselves.

IV.

[vii.] Benefactors seem to love those they have bene
fited more than those who have received the benefit love
their benefactors, and the question is sometimes asked
what is the reason of this apparent paradox ? The reason
most commonly given is that the one are debtors, the others
creditors. So that, just as a borrower wishes the lender
dead, whereas the lender is anxious for the welfare of the
borrower, benefactors desire the welfare of those whom they
have benefited, in order that they may receive favours in
return, whereas the benefited are not interested in repaying
them. Epicharmus would say5 perhaps, that those who hold
this view " look at the play from a bad seat," but it is a

IX. vii. FRIENDSHIP. 2QI

natural enough one, as most people have short memories,
and would rather have a benefit done them than confer one
themselves.

The true reason, however, would seem to go deeper. 2
There is here no real analogy with borrowing. A creditor
does not love his debtor, he merely wishes him to live in
order that he may get the money back. But those who
have done a good turn have a real affection for those to
whom they have done it, even although they expect no
profit, either present or future, in return. It is the same in 2
handicraft. Every one loves the work of his own hands
more than he would be loved by it if it had a soul to love.
Perhaps poets carry this furthest. For the poet has an
exaggerated opinion of his own poems, loving them as a
father loves his children. This is the true analogy to the t
case before us. The man who confers a benefit sees his
own handiwork in the man who receives it. He therefore
loves him more than the work loves its maker. And the
reason is that every one loves and desires existence, and it is
by the active discharge of function (i.e. by living and acting)
that we exist. But what a man makes is, so to speak, a J
realization of himself. He therefore loves his work for the /
same reason as he loves existence. And this is natural, as *
that which a thing potentially is becomes manifest in
actuality by what it makes or does. Moreover, his own '
action is something beautiful in the eyes of the man who
confers a benefit, so that he delights in the object of it ;
whereas the receiver of the benefit sees nothing beautiful in
his benefactor. If he sees anything it is merely his profit,
which is neither so sweet nor so lovable. But, to the other i
not only the present act but the hope for the future and the
memory of the past is sweet. But sweetest of all and most /
lovable, is the actual realization of himself. His work, then, J

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. IX. vn.

is an abiding possession to the maker of it (for beauty
endures), whereas the profit of the receiver is quickly gone.
There is pleasure, moreover, in the memory of what is
finely done, little or none in the memory of what is merely
profitable (although with expectation it seems to be just the
reverse). Moreover, loving a man is analogous to doing or
making something, being loved to having something done
to one. And thus it is that love and feelings of friendship
naturally rise in those who choose the better part in
action.

Finally, every one loves more what has cost him trouble —
just as those who have made money love it more than those
who merely inherit it — and there is no trouble in receiving
a benefit, whereas there is labour in well-doing. It is
on the same principle that mothers love their children
better than fathers, for they have labour in bearing them
and a fuller assurance that they are their very own. And
this would seem to be a characteristic of benefactors
also.

[viii.] The question has also been raised whether we ought
to love ourselves or others best. We blame those who love
themselves better than anybody else, calling them self-loving
by way of reproach. Moreover, all the actions of the bad
man seem to be done with an eye to himself; the more
so the worse he is, and accordingly we reproach him
with doing nothing in a disinterested way. But the good
man acts with an eye to what is noble, the more so the
better he is, and for the sake of his friend puts his own
interest in the background. On the other hand, facts are
against this view, and not unnaturally, for it is urged that
one ought to love him most who is most a friend — in other
words, the man who wishes well to his friend for the friend's
sake even though nobody knows it. But a man has this

IX. viu. FRIENDSHIP. 2Q3

feeling as well as all the other feelings that are characteristic
of friendship towards himself in a higher degree than to
any one else. For we have already seen that a man's friendly
feelings towards others are merely an extension of his feeling
towards himself. All the proverbs, moreover, agree with
this, e.g. "one in soul," "the property of friends is
common," " equality makes friendship," " the knee is nearer
than the shin," — all which are more applicable to one's self
than to others, for a man is his own best friend. Both of
these two views have a great deal to say for themselves.
Which is the true one ?

In such cases the best way is to distinguish and define 3
to what extent, and in what sense each is true. If, then,
we understand the exact sense in which the term " self-
loving " is used in each case we shall perhaps be able
to solve the difficulty. Now, those who use it as a 4
term of reproach call those who assign to themselves the
larger share of money, honour, and the pleasures of the
body self-loving. For these things are what most people
desire and take trouble about, as the best to be had.
Hence they are objects of keen competition. People who
are greedy of these things gratify their desires and their
passions generally, i.e. the irrational part of their nature.
And as the majority are of this character, the term in its
primary use reflects the meanness of its origin, and the self-
love of such men is justly held up to reproach. That most 5
people are accustomed to call those who assign these things
to themselves lovers of themselves is obvious. For if any
one were anxious to excel others in justice, temperance,
or any other kind of virtue, and always coveted the noble
act for himself, no one would call him selfish or blame
him. Yet such a man would in a truer sense be a lover of 6
himself. For he assigns what is noblest and best to himself,

294 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. IX. vm.

and gratifies the sovereign element in his nature, obeying
it in everything. And just as the sovereign element in
the state, or in any other system, seems more than any
thing else to be the state or system, so it is with man. He
is most self-loving who loves and gratifies this part of his
nature. Moreover, a man is called continent or incontinent
according as reason rules within him or not, seeing that each
man is his reason. And actions which are done with reason
are held to be his own and voluntary in the highest sense.
Clearly, then, this is what makes the man (or makes him most
truly) what he is, and the good man more than any other
loves this part of himself. More than any other, therefore,
he will love himself, though in a sense other than the man
we reproach with self-love, from whom he will differ as much
as living according to reason differs from living by passion,
or desiring what is noble from desiring what seems to be
profitable. Those, then, who, beyond all others, are jealous
of noble actions are welcomed and praised by everybody.
And if all men were to vie with one another in what is noble,
and to strive to act in the noblest way, not only would all
the common needs be supplied, but individuals would obtain
the greatest of goods, for this is precisely what virtue is.

We see, then, that the good man ought to love himself,
for by acting nobly he will both benefit himself and assist
others. The bad man, on the other hand, ought not to
love himself, seeing that by following impulses which are
not the best he will injure both himself and others. There
is thus a discord in the case of the bad man between what
he ought to do and what he does. Whereas the good man
does what he ought to do, for reason always chooses what is
best for self, and the good man follows reason.

It is true, moreover, of the good man that he does many
things for the sake of his friends and of his country. If

IX. vni.

FRIENDSHIP. 295

need be he will die for them. For he will throw away money
and honours and everything that men commonly strive for,
claiming for himself what is noble. And he will prefer a
brief period of deep delight to a long period of mild delight,
a year of noble living to many years of ordinary existence,
one great and noble action to many insignificant ones.
(This, I suppose, is what a man does when he dies for
others. He chooses something great and noble for himself.)
And he will give away money in order that his friends may
have more. For the money goes to his friend but the noble
deed to himself, and in this way he appropriates the greater
good. Similarly with regard to honours and offices. He 10
will resign all these to his friend, for this he deems noble
and praiseworthy. Rightly then is his goodness held in
high esteem, for he chooses what is noble in preference
to everything else. It is even possible to surrender
actions to a friend, as it may be nobler to cause a friend to
do them than to do them one's self. It is clear, then, that in 1 1
all that is lovely and of good report the good man assigns
the larger share to himself. After this manner, as already
said, a man ought to love himself, but not after the manner
of the multitude.

[ix.] A further question may be raised as to whether the i
happy man will need friends or not. Some say that those
who are blessed and self-sufficient have no need of friends,
since they have all good things already, and those who are
self-sufficient need nothing more, whereas a friend, being a
second self, supplies what a man cannot have by himself.
As Euripides says—

" If God hath blest, what need of friends ? "

On the other hand, it seems strange, when assigning every 2
kind of good to the happy man, not to assign him friends,

NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. IX. ix.

who are thought to be the greatest of external goods. More
over, if it is more characteristic of a friend to confer benefits
than to receive them, and if to do good is the mark of
a good man and a virtuous character, and if, further, it is
nobler to benefit one's friends than strangers, the good man
will require friends to benefit. And this raises the further
question whether one requires friends more in good or in
bad fortune, seeing that when we are unfortunate we want
some one to help us, when fortunate some one whom we
ourselves may help. Moreover, it would surely be
ridiculous to condemn the truly happy man to solitude.
For no one would choose to have all good things to himself,
inasmuch as man is a political being, and made for society.
The happy man must therefore have this good also, seeing
that he has everything that is naturally good for man, and
that it is plainly better to spend one's time with friends,
and with good friends, than with strangers and casual people.
Whence the conclusion is drawn that the happy man must
have friends.

What do those who hold the former of these two views
mean, and in what sense are they right? Most people
think, do they not, that those who are useful to us are our
friends ? Now, the truly happy man will not want friends
of this kind, seeing that he already has every good. Similarly,
he will have little or no need of friendship which is founded
on pleasure— his life being pleasant in itself does not want
any adventitious pleasure— and as he does not need friends
of this kind people think that he does not want friends at
all. But this is surely wrong. For, as we said at the
outset, happiness is a form of activity, and it is clear that an
activity or function is something that we perform, not some
thing that belongs to us as a possession. Happiness, then,
consists in living and in the active discharge of function.

IX. ix. FRIENDSHIP. 297

Moreover, the activity of the good man is good and pleasant
in itself, as we saw at the outset, for it is his own, and what
is our own is pleasant. Now, a man gets a better view of
others than of himself, and of their actions than of his own.
From which it follows that actions of good men who are his
friends give pleasure to the good man, inasmuch as in being
good and his own they possess both the conditions of true
pleasure. The truly happy man, therefore, will want friends
of this kind, since he desires to have a good view of actions
which are virtuous and which are his own, and the actions
of a good man who is a friend answer to this description.
Further, it is commonly admitted that the life of the happy
man must needs be a pleasant one. But isolation makes
life hard, as it is difficult to sustain one's energy in solitude,
but comparatively easy in the company of others or with
others in view. In this way an activity pleasant in itself 6
will be more continuous, and this accords with our idea of
true happiness. For the good man, as such, delights in
acts of virtue, and detests vicious actions, just as the
musician delights in beautiful music, but is pained with
bad. Finally, a man gets practice in virtue by living on 7
intimate terms with good men, as Theognis says —

[" Good wilt thou learn from the good j but should thy companions be

evil
Lost to thee surely shall be all that thy soul hath acquired."]

From a still deeper point of view we may see that to the
good man a good friend is a natural object of desire. We
have already seen that whatever is naturally good is good
and pleasant in itself to the good man. Now, life is defined
in the case of the lower animals as the faculty of perceiving ;
in the case of man as the faculty of perceiving and thinking.
But a faculty realizes itself in function, and the essence

298 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. IX. ix.

of a thing lies in its function, so that the essence of life
may be said to consist of thought and perception. . .

9 Let us grant, then, that life itself is good and pleasant,
as is proved by the fact that all men desire it— the
good and truly happy more than anybody else, seeing that
it is more desirable to them than to anybody else, and that
their life is more truly happy than that of other people.
Let us grant, too, that in seeing we perceive that we see ; in
hearing, that we hear ; in walking, that we walk ; and so on ;
in other words, that, besides the faculty itself, we have the
faculty of perceiving that we are exercising it, so that when

Iwe perceive with the senses we are conscious that we
perceive, when we think, that we think. Further, let us
grant that to be thus conscious of thought and perception is
to be conscious of existence, seeing that we agreed that to
exist is to perceive and think, and that consciousness of life
is pleasant in itself, since life is naturally good, and con
sciousness of possessing a good is itself pleasant. Let us
grant, again, that life is more desirable to the good than to
anybody else, inasmuch as existence is good and pleasant to
them, seeing that they take pleasure in the consciousness of

10 that which is in itself a good. And, finally, let us grant that
a good man stands in the same relation to his friend as to
himself, seeing that his friend is a second self. It follows
from all this that the existence of his friend is desirable to
each man in the same sense, or in a like sense, as his own
existence is desirable to him. But we saw that existence is
made desirable by the consciousness that the self is good,
and such consciousness is pleasant in itself. A man, there
fore requires the consciousness of his friend's existence,
which can be obtained by community of life and the inter
course of word and thought. For this is what community
of life would seem to mean in the case of man, not merely

IX. ix. FRIENDSHIP. 299

feeding in the same place, as in the case of beasts. If, then,
existence, which is naturally good and pleasant, is desirable in
itself to the truly happy man, and the existence of his friend
is as his own, a friend is a desirable possession. But
" desirable " means that which we ought to have, and without
which we are incomplete. The conclusion, therefore, is that
if a man is to be happy he will require good friends.

300 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X. i.

XIII.
PLEASURE.

1 [x. i.] WE must now discuss the question of Pleasure. For
this seems to be one of the most fundamental elements in
our nature, explaining why in the education of children
we use pleasure and pain as a species of rudder. More
over, it is of the greatest importance in the training of
character that children should delight in and dislike the
proper things. For these feelings permeate the whole of
life, and are a powerful influence in the production of good
character, and consequently of happiness, seeing thaT^we

2 choose what is pleasant, and avoid what is painful. This
subject, therefore, would appear to be the last we should
omit to discuss, especially as it offers many difficulties.

Some hold that pleasure is the good ; others, again, hold
that, on the contrary, it is wholly evil, some perhaps being
really persuaded that it is so, others thinking that it is more
edifying to represent pleasure as a bad thing, even though
they do not think so, on the ground that most men
incline to it, and are the slaves of their pleasures, and that
it is necessary accordingly to draw them to the opposite

3 extreme, that in this way they may arrive at the mean. In
all this they are no doubt wrong, seeing that where the
passions are concerned, and in matters of conduct generally,

X. I. PLEASURE. 301

words are less convincing than actions. The result is that
when their advice is in plain contradiction to the evidence
of the senses, they bring contempt upon themselves, and
discredit upon truth. If one who depreciates pleasure is yet
observed sometimes to make it his object, people think that
his inclination to it arises from the belief that it is at all
times desirable, for fine distinctions are beyond the mass of
mankind. I hold, therefore, that sincerity is best not only
for the advance of knowledge, but for the improvement of
life. For when our words harmonize with our actions they
are believed, and act as an inducement to those who under
stand their meaning to apply them to practice. But let
us return, and in the first place consider the theories as
to pleasure.

[ii.] Eudoxus l maintained that pleasure was the good for
several reasons. In the first place, he said that all creatures,
both rational and irrational, desire it, and that what is desired
is good, and what is most desired is best for every creature.
The fact, then, that all creatures are drawn to the same object
proves that this is the best for them all (every being seeking
its own good as it seeks its own food) ; and that which is
good for all, and which all desire, is the good. This theory
owed its acceptance not so much to the arguments by which
it was supported as to the character of Eudoxus, who had
the highest reputation for temperance. It was therefore
thought that he held these views not because he was a lover
of pleasure, but because they really were true. Secondly,
he held that their truth was proved equally from the opposite
side, pain being in itself a universal object of aversion, and
therefore its opposite an object of desire. Thirdly, that js_
most desirable ^wMciL-we_desire_for its_QWJi- sake, not by
reason of anything else or for any end beyond itself, and such
1 Of Cnidus, a distinguished Platonist and astronomer.

3°2 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X; n.

admittedly is the character of pleasure. No one asks
to what end one is pleased, pleasure being in itself
desirable. . . .

4 Those, on the other hand, who, in opposing these argu
ments, maintain that what all beings desire is not necessarily
good, take up a false line. There is a presumption in favour
of a belief which is universal, and any one who tries to
undermine it commits himself to a hopeless paradox.
If only irrational beings desired pleasure there might be
something in this reply, but if rational beings also desire it,
surely this view must be wrong. Yet even in inferior
creatures there may well be a superior principle which
desires the good that is proper to them. . . .

4 [iii.] Again, assuming that the good is perfect and com
plete, while movements and processes are incomplete, the
opponents of pleasure try to prove that pleasure is a move
ment and process of becoming. But they seem to be wrong
in holding it to be a movement at all. Every movement is
either quick or slow — if not absolutely, like that of the
universe, at least relatively to something else. Pleasure,
however, is neither quick nor slow. One may be quickly
pleased as one may be quickly angry; but the feeling of
pleasure cannot be quick even relatively, as can walking
growing, and the like. The passage to_D]easur£ may be
quick or slow, but the enjoyment of pleasure, the actual

5 being pleased, cannotjbe^quick.^ Again, in what sense can
it be called a process of coming into being? A thing
cannot come into being out of anything indiscriminately,
but things are resolved into that out of which they come.
Pain_must therefore be the dissolution of the elements
which pleasure brings into being. [But what are these"
elements ? ]

6 A further view is that pain represents a falling short of

X. nr. PLEASURE. 303

the natural state, and pleasure a reinstatement or replenish
ment. But these are bodily processes. If, then, pleasure is
a replenishment, that which is replenished, viz. the body,
must be that which feels the pleasure. But this is contrary
to fact. Pleasure, then, cannot be a replenishment ; but
wh erg jji_PTg_ is L replenishment there is pleasure, where exhaus^
tion, pain._ The view in question seems to have been
suggested by the pains and pleasures of nutrition. For
after suffering the antecedent pain of want of food, we feel
pleasure in the satisfaction of the want. But this is not the 7
universal condition of pleasure. The pleasures of mathe
matics, among the pleasures of sense those of smell as well
as many sights and sounds, lastly, hopes and memories
— are instances of pleasure which involve no antecedent
pain. What, we may ask, do these pleasures bring into
being ? What is here wanting which can be said to be
replenished ?

To those, again, who object to pleasure on the ground 8
that some pleasures are disgraceful, we might reply that
these are not really pleasant, for what is pleasant to those £
who are evilly disposed need not be thought to be so -
to anybody else. (We do not hold that to be wholesome ;s
or sweet or bitter, which appears so to the sick man;
nor, again, that to be white which seems so to the man
with bad eyes.) Or, again, one might reply that the 9
pleasures themselves are desirable, but not when obtained
from these sources ; just as wealth is desirable, but not to one
who has betrayed a trust for it, and health, but not if one
has to be on diet all the time. Or, again, it might be pointed TO
out that pleasures differ specifically : those derived from
what is noble differ from those which are derived from what is
base ; nor is it possible to enjoy the pleasures of the just man
without being one's self just, any more than the pleasures of

304 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X. in.

the musical man without being musical one's self, and so with
all other pleasures.

11 The difference between the true friend and the flatterer
will serve to illustrate the contention that either pleasure is
not good, or, if it is, that pleasures differ specifically. The
object in the one case is to do good, in the other to give
pleasure, and we blame the one and praise the other, thus
recognizing that the objects they have in view are different.

12 Moreover, no one would choose to live on condition of
having no more intellect than a child all his life, even
though he were to enjoy to the full the pleasures of a child ;
nor, again, to find enjoyment in any base conduct, even
though he had the promise of never suffering any pain.
Finally, there are many things we should eagerly endeavour
to obtain, even although they brought no pleasure with them,
e.g. sight, memory, knowledge, virtue. And if it be said that
pleasure is a necessary accompaniment of these activities,
this makes no difference. We should choose them even
although no pleasure resulted from them.

13 It seems, therefore, to be established that pleasure is not
the good, and that all pleasures are not desirable^ On the
other hand, some pleasures are desirable in themselves,
differing from these last in kind, in other words in the
source from which they are derived. So much for current
views upon pleasure.

i [iv.] Let us now ask what pleasure itself is, and with a
view to throwing light upon it let us make a new start. . . .

5 The faculties of perception are called into active exercise
by an appropriate object. The exercise is perfect when
the faculty is sound and the object to which it responds
is the highest of those which are appropriate to it. (This
seems to be what we mean by the perfect exercise of

x. iv. ?L£ASURE. 305

function. Whether it is the faculty itself, or that in
which the faculty resides is that exercised we need not stop
to consider.) In the case, then, of each of the faculties the
exercise will be the best possible when the faculty is in the
best condition and the object the noblest of those that fall
within its scope. Now, this exercise of faculty will be not
only the most perfect, but also the pleasantest. For every
exercise of perception is accompanied by pleasure, and the
same is true of reasoning and speculation, the most perfect
being the pleasantest and the most perfect being the exercise
which is called forth when the faculty is in its normal condi
tion, and the object the best of those which fall within its
scope.

The effect _ ofjgleasure is to perfect_tiie_exercise_of_^e 6
faculty. But pleasure perfects it in a different way from
the object, and the act of perception (when these are of
the right kind) ; just as health causes you to be well in one
way, the physician in another. . . . The pleasure perfects 8
the exercise not in the sense in which a pre-existent habit
or state does, but as some superadded end, like the grace of
youth. . . .

[v.] This will be still more obvious when we consider that 3
the exercise of one faculty is obstructed by the pleasure
which comes from another. A man who is fond of the flute
cannot attend to an argument if he hears any one playing,
the reason being that he takes more pleasure in flute-play
ing than in the subject on hand. The pleasure of flute-
playing obstructs the exercise of the reason. The same 4
thing happens whenever we are engaged in two occupations
at once. The pleasanter thwarts the other. If the differ*
ence in pleasure is great, it may even inhibit it altogether.
Hence, if we take intense delight in any occupation, we are
unable to do anything else ; on the other hand, if it gives us

x

3O6 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X. v>

only a mild pleasure, we occupy ourselves with other things.
Thus when people eat sweetmeats in the theatre, they eat the

5 most when the acting is bad. But since its proper pleasure
naturally raises the exercise of any faculty to a higher power
by sustaining it for a longer time and improving it, while
pleasure from another source injures it, it is plain that these
differ widely from one another, pleasure from another
source acting very much as pain from the exercise itself.
For pain destroys the activity which causes it, e.g. when
one finds writing or calculation unpleasant : as the activity
is painful he ceases to write or calculate. The pleasures
and pains, then, that are proper to the exercise of any
faculty (by " proper " meaning those that naturally accom
pany the exercise) affect it in opposite ways, pleasures from
other sources acting, as we have seen, in the same way as
pain, and destroying the activity, though not to the same
extent.

10 [ [iv.] The reason why, every one desires pleasure may very
well be that every one desires life. Life means the exercise
of faculty, and each of us responds with the faculty and to
the objects which he likes most, the musician with his ear
to music, the student with his intellect to the object of
his special study, and so on. But jLEJeasure perfects the
exercise of our facjjItJ£^»J]LiriUjts3eft life, which men

desire. Hence it is natural that we should desire pleasure,
1 1 as it perfects that which we all desire, viz. life. Whether
we choose life for the sake of pleasure or pleasure for the
sake of life, we need not now inquire. They seem to be
indissolubly joined together and not to admit of separation :
without the exercise of faculty there can be no pleasure,
every exercise of faculty' is perfected by pleasure.]

6 [v.] As activities differ in moral quality — some being

X. v. PLEASURE. SO/

desirable, some undesirable, and some indifferent — the same
is true of pleasures, as each activity has its own proper
pleasure attached to it. The pleasure which is proper to
good activity is therefore good ; that attached to a bad one
is bad. Even the desire of what is noble is praised,
while the desire of what is disgraceful is blamed. And the
pleasures which attach to activities are more closely con
nected with them than the corresponding desires. The
latter are separated from their object in time as well as in
nature ; while the pleasure coincides with the activity, and
is so inseparable from it that there is some doubt whether
pleasure and activity are not the same thing. I do not 7
mean to say that pleasure is thought or sense-perception
(this would be absurd), but its close connection with the
process explains why some people hold them to be identical.
As, then, activities _^ejijo^LQ_Jhe_j3lej^
rjany_them. Sight differs in purity from touch, hearing and
smelling from taste. There is therefore a corresponding
difference in their pleasures. The pleasures of thought, again,
are purer than those of sense-perception, and among these
again there are differences, as there are among the pleasures
of sense. Every kind of being, moreover, seems to have its 8
proper pleasure, as each has its proper function— that, namely,
which accompanies the exercise of its faculties. Look at
the different animals : the pleasures of a horse, a dog, and
a man are all different. As Heraclitus says, a donkey will
prefer a wisp of hay to a pot of gold — fodder being
pleasanter to a donkey than gold.

Pleasures, then, of beings specifically different differ specifi
cally from one another. And we might expect that beings of
the same species have the same pleasures. But in the case of
man, at least, there is no little difference. For the same 9
things give pleasure to one and pain to another ; they are

3O8 NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. X. v.

unpleasant and hateful to some people, pleasant and lovable to
others. What is true of sensible qualities — e.g. " sweetness "
which is one thing to the fever patient another to the
healthy, or "heat," which is one thing to the weak man

10 another to the strong — holds also of other things. In
all such cases we hold that things are as they appear to the
normal man. If we are right in this, as I think we are,
and the good man as such is our standard of truth and
reality, then what the good man thinks is pleasure will be
pleasure, what he delights in will be truly pleasant. Nor
need it surprise us if what is disagreeable to him is
pleasant to another. For there are many ways in which
a man may become corrupt and degenerate, and such things
are not pleasant in reality but only to that kind of men,
or to others in a similar condition.

11 The conclusion is plain. With regard to the pleasures
which all admit to be base, we must deny that they are
pleasures at all, except to those whose nature is corrupt.
And secondly, coming to those pleasures which are good,
let us ask which are characteristic of man. We shall find a
clue to the answer if we consider what activities are proper
to him, seeing that pleasures take their character from the
activities which they accompany. Our answer, therefore,
will be : those pleasures which perfect the activity of the
perfect and truly happy man, whether this activity be single
or manifold, may be called in the truest sense the pleasures
of a man. All others, like the activities which they accom
pany, are so only in a partial and secondary sense.

NOTES.

A (p. 24).
THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

" HENCE it is evident that the State is a creation of nature,
and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by
nature and not by mere accident is without a State, is either
above humanity or below it ; he is the

' Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,'

whom Homer denounces— the outcast who is a lover of war ; he
may be compared to a bird which flies alone. Thus the State
is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since
"V the whole is of necessity prior to the part ; for example, if the
whole body be destroyed there will be no foot or hand except in
an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand. For
things are defined by their working and power ; and we ought
Qot to say that they are the same when they are no longer the
same, but only that they have the same name. l*he proof that
the State is a creation of nature, and prior to the individual, is
that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing ; and
therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who
is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is
sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god ; he is no
part of a State. A social instinct is implanted in all men by
nature, and yet he who first founded the State was the greatest
of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals ;
but when separate from law and justice, he is the worst of all ;

310 NOTES.

since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped
at birth with the arms of intelligence and with moral qualities
which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have
not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals,
and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond
of men in States, and the administration of justice, which is the
determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political
society." Politics I. 2 (Jowett's Tr., condensed).

B (p. 25).
ANCIENT AND MODERN ETHICS.

J. S. MILL, who himself to a certain extent is open to the criti
cism in Chap. I. § 4 above, in a well-known passage in Liberty
contrasts ancient and modern ethics in both the respects there
noted. " Christian morality (so called)," he tells us, " holds out the
hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appro
priate motives to a virtuous life : in this falling far below the best
of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human
morality an essentially selfish character by disconnecting each
man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow creatures,
except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for
consulting them." "While in the morality of the best Pagan
nations, duty to the State holds even a disproportionate place,
infringing on the just liberty of the individual ; in purely Chris
tian ethics, that grand department of duty is scarcely noticed
or acknowledged. It is in the Koran, not the New Testament,
that we read the maxim, ' A ruler who appoints any man to an
office, when there is in his dominions another man better quali
fied for it, sins against God and against the State.' What little
recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in
modern morality is derived from Greek and Roman sources." In
characterizing the modern ideal in the same passage as " nega
tive rather than positive ; passive rather than active ; innocence
rather than nobleness ; abstinence from evil rather than ener
getic pursuit of good," he suggests a further contrast between
Greek and modern ethics — in regard to which George

NOTES. 311

Meredith seems to be of the same opinion. " Do not despise," he
says, in Evan Harrington, " a virtue purely Pagan. The young
who can act readily up to the Christian light are happier,
doubtless ; but they are led, they are passive ; I think they do
not make such capital Christians subsequently. They are never
in such danger we know ; but some in the flock are more than
sheep. The heathen ideal it is not so very easy to attain, and
those who mount from it to the Christian have, in my humble
thought, a firmer footing."

C (p. 37).
MONEY-MAKING.

" MEN seek after a better notion of wealth, and of the art of
making money than the mere acquisition of coin, and they are
right. For natural wealth and the natural art of money-making
are a different thing ; in their true form they are part of the
management of a household ; whereas there is no bound to the
wealth which springs from this art of money-making. But the
art of household management has a limit ; the unlimited acqui
sition of money is not its business. And, therefore, in one
point of view all wealth must have a limit ; nevertheless, as a
matter of fact, we find the opposite to be the case ; for all
money-makers increase their hoard of coin without limit. The
source of the confusion is the near connection between the two
kinds of money-making ; in either, the instrument [i.e. wealth]
is the same, although the use is different, and so they pass into
one another ; for each is a use of the same property, but with a
difference : accumulation is the end in the one case, but there
is a further end in the other. . . . The origin of this disposition in
men is that they are intent upon living only, and not upon living
well ; and as their desires are unlimited, they also desire that
the means of gratifying them should be without limit. And if
they are not able to supply their pleasures by the art of money-
making, they try other arts, using in turn every faculty in a
manner contrary to nature. The quality of courage, for ex
ample, is not intended to make money, but to inspire confidence ;
neither is this the aim of the general's or the physician's art, but

312 NOTES.

the one aims at victory, the other at health. Nevertheless,
some men turn every quality or art into a means of making
money ; this they conceive to be the end, and to the promotion
of the end all things must contribute." Politics, 1.9 (Jowett's
Tr., condensed).

D (p. 92).
THE PRUDENT MAN.

A CORRESPONDENT writes : " It does not appear to me at all
' verbal ' to substitute the * wise ' or ' prudent man ' for ' wisdom '
or 'prudence.' It is all-important. For what is wisdom?
Ans. 'What the developed judgment pronounces it to be.' And
this is the final and only standard." This objection illustrates
what requires to be brought out, viz. that the final standard is
not the judgment of an individual, but the organized form of
human life which is natural and, therefore, reasonable. Speak
ing of the Mean in morals and politics, Burke says that it " is
not such because it is found there ; but it is found there because
it is conformable to truth and nature." We might paraphrase
this in the present connexion by saying that the mean is not
such because the developed judgment pronounces it to be there,
but the developed judgment pronounces it to be there because
it is conformable to truth and nature.

E (p. 56).
CIRCUMSTANCES.

AN illustration of the Aristotelian doctrine of the relation of
circumstances to happiness comes aptly to hand, in the recently
published Letters of R. L. Stevenson.

" I should bear false witness if I did not declare life happy.
And your wonderful statement that happiness tends to die out
and misery to continue is diagnostic of the happy man raging
over the misery of others ; it could never be written of the man
who had tried what unhappiness was like. ... It is easy to have
too much ; easy also to have too little ; enough is required that
a man may appreciate what elements of consolation and joy

NOTES. 313

there are in everything but absolutely overpowering physical pain
or disgrace, and how in almost all circumstances the human
soul can play a fair part. If you have had trials, sickness,
and the approach of death, the alienation of friends, poverty
at the heels, and have not felt your soul turn round upon these
things and spurn them under — you must be very differently
made from me, and, I earnestly believe, from the majority of men.
I see a universe, I suppose, eternally different from yours ; a
solemn, a terrible, but a joyous and noble universe, where
suffering is not at least wantonly inflicted, though it falls with
dispassionate partiality ; but where it may be, and generally is,
nobly borne ; where, above all, any brave man may make out a
life which shall be happy for himself, and, by so being, beneficent
to those about him." R. L. Stevensorfs Letters to his Family
and Friends, I. 370 (condensed).

F (p. 144).
EQUITY.

" EQUITY makes allowance for human weakness, looking not to
the law but to the meaning of the lawgiver, not to the act but
to the intention, not to the part but to the whole, not to what a
a man is at the moment but to what he is as a rule. Equity
remembers benefits received rather than injuries that have been
suffered, and benefits received rather than benefits conferred ; it
is patient under injustice ; it is readier to appeal to reason than
to force, to arbitration than to law. For the arbitrator looks
to what is equitable, whereas the judge sees only the law ; indeed
arbitration was devised for no other purpose than to secure the
triumph of equity." Rhetoric, I. c. xiii. § 17.

G (p. 1 66).
THE USE OF LEISURE.

"As I must repeat once again, the first principle of all
action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than

314 NOTES.

occupation ; and therefore the question must be asked in good-
earnest, what ought we to do when at leisure. Clearly we ought]
not to be amusing ourselves, for then amusement would be the endj
of life. But if this is inconceivable, and yet amid serious occu
pation amusement is needed more than at other times, at suit
able times we should introduce amusements, and they should
be our medicines, for the emotion which they create in the soul
is a relaxation, and from the pleasure we obtain rest. It is clear
then that there are branches of learning and education which
we must study with a view to enjoyment of leisure, and these are
to be valued for their own sake ; whereas those kinds of know
ledge which are useful in business are to be deemed necessary,
and exist for the sake of other things. And therefore our
fathers admitted music into education, for, as Odysseus says,
there is no better way of passing life than when —

' Men's hearts are merry, and the banqueters in the hall, sitting in
order, hear the voice of the minstrel.'

It is evident, then, that there is a sort of education in which
parents should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary,
but because it is liberal and noble. Further, it is clear that
children should be instructed in some useful things— for
example, reading and writing — not only for their usefulness, but
also because many other sorts of knowledge are acquired
through them. With a like view they must be taught drawing,
not to prevent their making mistakes in their own purchases, or
in order that they may not be imposed upon in the buying or
selling of articles, but rather because it makes them judges of the
• beauty of the human form. To be always seeking after the useful
does not become free and exalted souls." Politics, VIII. 3
(Jowett's Tr., condensed).

H (p. 182).
UNANIMITY.

THE author of Virginibns Pnerisqne puts this admirably when
he writes : " Now this is where there should be community

NOTES. 3J5

between man and wife. They should be agreed on their catch
word in l facts of religion] or ''facts of science] or ' society, my
dear' ; for without such an agreement all intercourse is a painful

strain upon the mind For there are differences which no habit

nor affection can reconcile, and the Bohemian must not inter
marry with the Pharisee. Imagine Consuelo as Mrs. Samuel
Budgett, the wife of the successful merchant ! The best of men
and the best of women may sometimes live together all their
lives, and, for want of some consent on fundamental questions,
hold each other lost spirits to the end."

I (p. 147)-
CHARACTER AND INTELLECT.

FROM the side of education and the training of the moral
sentiment, Spencer has some excellent remarks in the spirit of
the present passage : " Mere culture of the intellect (and educa
tion as usually conducted amounts to little more) is hardly at
all operative upon conduct. Intellect is not a power but an
instrument— not a thing which itself moves and works, but a
thing which is moved and worked by forces behind it. To say
that men are ruled by reason is as irrational as to say that men
are ruled by their eyes. Reason is an eye— the eye through
which the desires see their way to gratification. And educating
it only makes it a better eye— gives it a vision more accurate
and more comprehensive— does not at all alter the desires sub
served by it. However far-seeing you make it, the passions will
still determine the directions in which it shall be turned— the
objects on which it shall dwell. Just those ends which the
instincts or sentiments propose will the intellect be employed
to accomplish ; culture of it having done nothing but increase
the ability to accomplish them. Probably some will urge that
enlightening men enables them to discern the penalties which
naturally attach to wrong-doing ; and in a certain sense this
is true. But it is only superficially true. Though they may
learn that the grosser crimes commonly bring retribution in one
shape or other, they will not learn that the subtler ones do.

316 NOTES.

Their sins will merely be made more Machiavellian. Did much
knowledge and piercing intelligence suffice to make men good,
then Bacon should have been honest and Napoleon should
have been just. Where the character is defective, intellect, no
matter how high, fails to regulate rightly, because predominant
desires falsify its estimates. Nay, even a distinct foresight of
evil consequences will not restrain when strong passions are at
work. Whatever moral benefit can be effected by education]!
must be effected by an education which is emotional rather If
than perceptive. If in making a child understand that this
thing is right and the other is wrong, you make \\.feel that they
are so — if you make virtue loved and vice loathed — if you arouse
a noble desire, and make torpid an inferior one — if you bring
into life a previously dormant sentiment — if you cause a sym
pathetic impulse to get the better of one that is selfish — if, in
short, you produce a state of mind to which proper behaviour
is natural, spontaneous, instinctive, you do some good. But no
drilling in catechisms, no teaching of moral codes, can effect
this. Only by repeatedly awakening the appropriate emotions
can character be changed. Mere ideas received by the intellect,
meeting no response from within — having no roots there — are
quite inoperative upon conduct, and are quickly forgotten upon
entering into life." Social Statics, p. 384 foil, (condensed).

INDEX.

ALEXANDER, PROFESSOR, 18.
Ambition, 243.
Amusement, 314.
Anaxagoras, 62.
Arbitration, 313.
Aristotle, life, 2.

Arts, analogy with virtue, 78, 81 f.,
88, 233. '

in education, 100.

Asceticism, 72.

BAIN, Professor, 75.

Baldwin, Professor, on habit, 97 f.

, on friendship, 185.

, on imitation, 186.

Beauty and good, 176.
Bentham, 193, 195.
Bosanquet, B., on the soul, 63.

on friendship, 179.

on philosophy as an element

in life, 151.
Burke, 137, 149, 312.
Butler, 90.
Browning, R., 93, 106, 113.

CARLYLE, 43, 180.
Carpenter, Edward, 185.
Character and opinion, 32.

and circumstances, 48, 312.

and intellect, 315.

Childhood, happiness of, 50, 225.
Christian Ethics, 47, 48, 95, 118,
161, 310.

City, the Greek, 2 f.
Conscience, 91.
Contemplation, 163.
Continence, 126 f., 263,
Courage, 72, 75, 103 t., 243, 248.
Cynics, 113, 161, 191.
Cyrenaics, 34.

DARWIN, 71.
Death, 247.
Desire, 67, 68.

EDUCATION, 131, 135, 145, 150,

3.14-

Epicureans, 2, 34, 161, 174.
Equity, 144, 270, 313.
Ethics, i, 12 f., 27 f., 41 f., 139,

310.
Eudoxus, 191, 301.

FEELINGS, the, 71.

Friends, 47.

Friendship, 169 f., 245, 281 f.

GENTLENESS, 244.

God, 155, 287, 310.

Good, 131, 139, 1 68, 176, 287 f.

Good counsel, 141, 270.

Goods, kinds of, 221.

Green, T. II., 22, 81, 109, 118.

HABIT, 73, 97, 148.
Hamilton, Sir William, 197.

INDEX.

Happiness, 26 f., 41 f., 156, 193,

221, 224, 227, 296, 312.
Health, 47.

Hedonism, 25, 191, 192, 195.
Hobbes, 13, 14, 54, 172, 184.
Honour, 35.

IMITATION, 187.
Immortality, 163, 172, 173.
Incontinence, 120. See CON
TINENCE.

Individual, the, 8, 24, 184, 309.
Indignation, 245.
Insight, 10, 19, 132, 148, 149.
Intelligence, 68, 148, 270, 315.

JAMES, Professor William, 74,

no.

Jowett, 36, 126.
Justice, 245, 310.

KANT, 124.
Knowledge, 28 f.
Koran, 310.

LEISURE, 10, 45, 159, 167, 313.
Liberality, 243.
Life, 297.

MACKENZIE, Professor, on re
flection, 69.

Magnanimity, 243.

Magnificence, 243.

Marriage, 181.

Materialism, 61.

Mean, the, 9, 87, 240 f., 312.

Merit, 76.

Mill, J. S., 79, 80, 184, 192, 193,
167 f., 310.

Modesty, 245.

Monasticism, 162.

Money, 36 f.

Moral Philosophy. See ETHICS.

Morris, William, 85, 114.

Motive and consequence, 78 f.

OPINION, 129, 134.

PERIPATETICS, 72
Pessimism, 54 f.

Philosophy, ancient, I .

= Wisdom, 8, 136, 153 f.,

277 f.
Plato, 2, 64, 70, 89, 94, 148, 149,

155-

on courage, 103.

on philosophy, 157, 159.

on pleasure, 123 n., 195 f.

on temperance, 116, 117,

129.

on the poet, 166.

Playfulness, 244.
Pleasure, 189 f., 300 f.

— as end, 34.

as test of virtue, 75, 235.

of the body, 121.

, place of, in education, 236.

, right attitude to, 246.

— , things pleasant in them
selves, 223, 308.

— , true and false, 205 f.
Poetry, 165.
Politics, 15, 278.
Prosperity, 45, 224.
Prudence, 68, 136 f., 266 f.
Prudent man, 92 f., 312.
Pythagoras, 36, 68, 164.
Pythagoreans, 241.

REASON, unconscious, 66.

as standard, 89, 93.

Reform, 143.

Rousseau, 52, 98, 102, 149.

Ruskin, 38.

SELF and others, 23, 183 f.,
292 f.

Self-consciousness, 186 f.

Self-control, imperfect. Sec CON
TINENCE.

Self-denial, 119.

Sense = common sense, 144,
270.

Socrates, I, 5, 16, 22, 93, 107,
112, 120, 127, 147, 149, 150,
161, 253, 263, 275.

Soul, 57 f., 228 f.

Souls, different, 220, 229.

Spencer, H., 184, 315.

INDEX.

319

Speusippus, 191.

Spinoza, 96, 153, 169.

Standard, the, 93, 312.

State, the, 8, 24, 309, 310.

Stephen, Leslie, 77, 185.

Stevenson, R. L., 115, 312, 314.

Stoics, 2, 36, 161.

Stout, G. F., 102, 200.

Suicide, 252.

Syllogism, the practical, 133, 141,

142, 264.
Sympathy, 145.

TEMPERANCE, 103, 104, 116 f.,

242, 257 f.

Theoria. See CONTEMPLATION.
Theory and conduct, 32.
Thought and action, 69.
Time as element in happiness,

49, 221, 226.

| Truthfulness, 244.
i Tolstoi, 182.

i UNANIMITY as condition of friend
ship, 1 80, 289, 314.
| Utilitarianism, 79, 116, 183, 194,

200, 205.

| Utility, 146.

| in education, 314.

| VIRTUE, 70 f., 232 f.

! , intellectual, 136.

— is knowledge, 129 f.
, natural, 67, 70, 274.

WALLACE, William, 189, 205, 207.
War, 278.

Ward, Professor James, 202.
Wealth, 47.

Wisdom, 8, 68, 153 f., 165, 266 f.
See also PHILOSOPHY.

THE END.

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